URGENT: City Vote Wednesday 1/21/26 at 10 AM — Stand With Kizmah

Hey everyone,

 

 

Chicago says the proposed hemp ordinance is about public safety.
 For many of us, it feels like something else.

 

It feels like being pushed out.

 

If safety were truly the goal, this ordinance would focus on regulation — licensing, testing, dosage limits, and age verification. Instead, it shuts down community-built wellness spaces and hands what they created to corporate interests like bars, liquor stores, and large cannabis operators.

 

That doesn’t feel like protection.
 It feels like loss.

 

Places like Kizmah weren’t built by corporations. They were built by artists, educators, healers, and small business owners who believe cannabis and hemp can support wellness, creativity, and care — not just profit.

 

We created sober-adjacent spaces for people who don’t feel safe or comfortable elsewhere: people living with chronic pain, MS, epilepsy, PTSD, anxiety, cancer symptoms, sleep disorders, and more, and for our fur babies as well. People who want low-dose relief and calm. People who avoid alcohol, want better options, and feel overwhelmed in dispensaries and bars.

 

These are our neighbors.

 

This ordinance takes those spaces away — while still using the language of equity and progress. In reality, it continues to punish the people for cannabis while quietly shifting control to corporate systems.

 

And it won’t even work.

 

Prohibition doesn’t eliminate demand — it pushes people out of the city or underground. People won’t suddenly feel comfortable in dispensaries or bars. They’ll buy online, go to the suburbs, or lose access entirely.

 

At the same time, the ordinance removes non-alcoholic wellness options from community spaces and pushes them into alcohol-centered environments like taverns and bars. If public health mattered, we’d be expanding sober options — not eliminating them.

 

Running a small business in Chicago is already hard. We juggle multiple licenses, fees, inspections, and constant changes just to survive. Instead of offering a hemp retail license or a compliance path, this ordinance simply shuts the door. 

 

 

And now the City is robbing our community — the creative, wellness-driven, harm-reduction-focused spaces that did this responsibly — and handing the value to corporate interests that never built it. We are being forced to step aside so corporations can take over what we built — stripped of its humanity and sold back and taxed heavily, while calling it equity.

 

That’s not progress.
 That’s a city forgetting who it’s built for.

 

Let’s send a message loud enough that City Hall can’t ignore it:

 

 

Subject: Vote NO on the Hemp Ban — Support Small Businesses

 

Hi Alderman,

 

I’m a constituent in your ward and I’m asking you to vote NO on the proposed cannabinoid hemp ordinance as written.

 

This ordinance does not create responsible regulation — it bans cannabinoids, eliminates community-based wellness businesses, and hands what they built to corporate alcohol and cannabis interests. It removes sober, low-dose wellness options many residents rely on and replaces them with bars, liquor stores, and large operators.

 

Please reject this ordinance and support a regulated hemp retail license instead of a prohibition-style approach that punishes small businesses and pushes sales underground or out of Chicago.

 

Thank you for representing our community,
 [Your Name]
 [Your Address or Ward]

You can find your alderman and ward here: https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/mayor/iframe/lookup_ward_and_alderman.html

Or you can do what I did, and copy and paste every single alderman's email into your letter 😉 Let's be heard! 

Ward01@cityofchicago.org,
office@aldermanhopkins.com,
Ward03@cityofchicago.org,
Ward04@cityofchicago.org,
Ward05@cityofchicago.org,
Ward06@cityofchicago.org,
Ward07@cityofchicago.org,
Ward08@cityofchicago.org,
Ward09@cityofchicago.org,
Ward10@cityofchicago.org,
Ward11@cityofchicago.org,
Ward12@cityofchicago.org,
Ward13@cityofchicago.org,
Ward14@cityofchicago.org,
Ward15@cityofchicago.org,
Ward16@cityofchicago.org,
Ward17@cityofchicago.org,
Ward18@cityofchicago.org,
Ward19@cityofchicago.org,
Ward20@cityofchicago.org,
Ward21@cityofchicago.org,
Ward22@cityofchicago.org,
Ward23@cityofchicago.org,
ward24@cityofchicago.org,
Ward25@cityofchicago.org,
Ward26@cityofchicago.org,
Ward27@cityofchicago.org,
Ward28@cityofchicago.org,
Ward29@cityofchicago.org,
Ward30@cityofchicago.org,
Ward31@cityofchicago.org,
Ward32@cityofchicago.org,
Ward33@cityofchicago.org,
Ward34@cityofchicago.org,
ward35@cityofchicago.org,
Ward36@cityofchicago.org,
Ward37@cityofchicago.org,
Ward38@cityofchicago.org,
Ward39@cityofchicago.org,
Ward40@cityofchicago.org,
Ward41@cityofchicago.org,
Ward42@cityofchicago.org,
Ward43@cityofchicago.org,
Ward44@cityofchicago.org,
Ward45@cityofchicago.org,
Ward46@cityofchicago.org,
Ward47@cityofchicago.org,
Ward48@cityofchicago.org,
Ward49@cityofchicago.org,
Ward50@cityofchicago.org 

This Wednesday, we will be standing at City Hall for all of us — and we hope you’ll stand with us.