CHICAGO (WLS) — January first will mark five years since recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois.

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Long lines were seen on January 1st, 2020 as hundreds waited to get into dispensaries in Chicago and across Illinois.

Tiffany Chappell Ingram is the executive director of the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois.

The state went from zero to more than 239 dispensaries in five years, according to Ingram. The industry also employes more than 30,000 people.

However, Ingram said the cannabis industry is “extremely challenging” to be a part of.

“You have to remember, federally, it’s not normalized. So, what that means is that you don’t have normalized banking. Which means it’s very challenging to get capital, which is the life blood of any business,” she said.

State compliance regulations and taxes in Illinois, compared to states such as Missouri and Michigan, also make the industry challenging.

Illinois has grant and loan programs to social equity license holders.

CBAI is “focused on what are the sort of policies, decisions that are happening at the federal, state and local level that impact businesses,” Ingram said.

“I don’t think that most people know but there are over twelve different agencies in the state that have to do with the regulation of cannabis,” she added. “We are really laser focused on the decision makers and the policy to make sure that we have a thriving industry in Illinois.”

The Cannabis Research Institute launched earlier this year. It’s a joint effort supported by the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago and is part of the University of Illinois System.

The institute’s mission is to advance public knowledge about cannabis and hemp.

“The governor wanted to have a cannabis program that was based in social equity and that addressed some of the long-standing prohibition and negative stigma that’s associated with the plant,” CRI Director Dr. Reggie Gaudino said. “The key priorities of the institute are to bring a number of different research programs, social equity, social impact, social justice, plant-facing research, people-facing research as well, because of the different compounds and the different uses of the plant, right.”

Gaudino added that the goal of CRI is to be able to bring forth a lot of research that covers the entire arc. Some call it “from seed to social impact.”

As for the social equity aspect of Illinois’ recreational marijuana industry, Gaudino

“In other states, if you look at a lot of the cannabis industry, it typically looks a lot like corporate America. So, unfortunately because of that, there are people of color who have not been able to really get involved and benefit from the boon that the plant could actually bring,” he said.

So how does the Cannabis Research Institute set Illinois apart from other states?

“The unique part of the program here is that the CRI sits at the system level. It doesn’t sit on any one of the campuses. So, what that allows us to do, is to draw from the expertise of all the faculty at all three campuses across the University of Illinois.”