The Cannabis Research Institute (CRI) recently announced the launch of its Advisory Committee, a group of leaders from across research, policy, public health, and the cannabis field who will help guide the institute’s long-term direction.

The Advisory Committee members include Donell Barnett, Nancy Freitag, Kelly Goldberg, D.K. Lee, Justin Leiby, Mila Marshall, Esther Ngumbi, Nate Inglis Steinfeld, and Edgar Velazquez. As a statewide research institute, CRI stated that it “needs trusted external voices to help ensure our work stays rigorous, relevant, and responsive to Illinois.” The Advisory Committee will help guide the big picture of CRI’s work. Members will:

–Advise on CRI’s strategy and emerging research priorities

–Review major initiatives and help strengthen partnerships across Illinois

–Connect CRI to expertise across academia, government, and the broader cannabis ecosystem

According to CRI, the Advisory Committee is different from the Community Partnership Committee (CPC). The Advisory Committee focuses on CRI’s overall strategy and direction. The CPC focuses on helping the Community Health and Cannabis Collaborative (CHeCC) team carry out CRI’s equity-centric research funding priority, including guiding seed funding decisions and supporting seed funding awardees, to ensure those investments reflect community priorities. In short, the Advisory Committee guides CRI’s overall strategy, and the CPC helps shape how CRI funds community-informed research.

CRI is an academic research institute at the University of Illinois that conducts nonpartisan, unbiased research on cannabis and hemp spanning agriculture, health education, and policy. CRI’s work is grounded in community input, scientific rigor, and attends to the inequitable impacts of the ongoing war on drugs. CRI is funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) for a three-year period beginning in 2024. The funding centers community input and prioritizes equity, defined as the state in which no one is disadvantaged from achieving their full potential because of social position or any other socially defined circumstance. Applied to this seed funding program, CRI aims to fund projects that identify and address the inequities that marginalized groups may experience related to cannabis in Illinois.

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