02/16/2025
Cheryl Cryer started her company, .shop, in 2017 to promote natural healing over pharmaceuticals. With a certification in medicinal plants from Cornell University, Cryer processes h**p extracts for humans and pets with various ailments.
"I’m not about selling 1,000 mg gummies through a Grey market loophole so that high schoolers can get high” owner Cheryl Cryer said. “I’m a registered herbalist. People come here because they’ve been exhausted through the medical system, can't find what they're looking for from the local ma*****na dispensary and are referred to me.”
Her products are tested and labeled, she said, and she doesn’t sell to anyone under 21.
In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson supports efforts to allow h**p sales while licensing and taxing them.
Suburban officials are wrestling with what to do, as they balance public safety concerns against regulations that could put some h**p shops out of business.
In the absence of stronger regulations, suburbs from Waukegan to Orland Park and Highland Park to Elk Grove Village have issued bans or regulations on psychoactive h**p products like delta-8 THC.
In west suburban Batavia, officials proposed banning h**p sales, but put the measure on hold after realizing it would hurt local businesses like Urban Apothecary, which sells CBD gummies that contain some THC, along with non-psychoactive therapeutic mushrooms and herbal teas.
Officials in Batavia, where at least eight stores sell h**p products, expect to consider a less restrictive measure in the near future that will aim primarily to keep the products away from minors.
H**p business owners say they welcome regulations, not bans, and say their livelihoods could depend on the outcome.
The public debate pits state-licensed cannabis companies, which often cater to the same customers, against hundreds of small businesses and startups that sell h**p products
Complicating regulation is the fact that h**p and cannabis come from the same plant. Federal law makes cannabis illegal, while allowing h**p businesses to be legal and giving them access to many traditional services that legal businesses can access, such as banking, credit card processing.
