Chicago Judge Calls Illinois Vape Edibles Lawsuit Baseless

A Chicago federal judge on March 25, 2026 dismissed Chad Alsip’s class action against Acreage Holdings, calling the claim that Illinois vape carts are illegal edibles entirely baseless. U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin held that the state’s own cannabis regulators already treat vaping as a form of smoking, so a 1,000-milligram oil pen can sit in the concentrate lane.

Alsip, a Kane County buyer, had filed that case and a twin suit against Wellness Group Pharms on January 24, 2025. Both complaints said vape oil is a cannabis-infused product capped at 100 milligrams of THC per package, not a concentrate with no package cap.

Durkin Called the Acreage Vape Suit Baseless

The Acreage docket is Alsip v. Acreage Holdings Inc., case number 1:25-cv-00867, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Durkin granted the companies’ motion to dismiss without prejudice and gave Alsip until April 9, 2026 to file an amended complaint.

The judge did not treat the potency numbers as a hidden switch. He said the fraud theory only works if Illinois officials missed a labeling scheme that a shopper could spot on the box. He refused to assume that.

Alsip’s claims are based on the implicit allegation that Illinois cannabis regulators are incompetent on an elementary level that is simply not plausible. Perhaps Alsip meant to allege that defendants made misrepresentations to the regulators and successfully committed a fraud in the regulatory approval process. But he did not make any such allegations, which is an indication he doesn’t have a basis to make such allegations.

Thomas M. Durkin, U.S. District Judge, Northern District of Illinois

If vaping counts as smoking under the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, Durkin wrote, then the defendants’ vapable oil products can be categorized and marketed as concentrates without violating Illinois rules, and Alsip’s claims are entirely baseless. Acreage Holdings, In Grown Farm, NCC, Acreage Holdings America, and Acreage Holdings WC were represented by Casey T. Grabenstein and Elizabeth A. Thompson of Saul Ewing LLP, which called the decision a hoped-for turning point so licensed operators can move past the wave.

Two THC Lanes, One Hard Package Cap

Adult-use Illinois does not use one THC ceiling. Flower is weighed in grams. Infused products are counted in milligrams of THC. Concentrate is counted in grams of product. Those three lanes are cumulative, so a resident can hold the full amount in each category at the same time.

The fight in Alsip’s papers was which lane a cartridge occupies. At the time he sued, a resident 21 or older could hold 30 grams of flower, 500 milligrams of THC in cannabis-infused product, and 5 grams of cannabis concentrate. A nonresident’s caps were 15 grams of flower, 250 milligrams of infused THC, and 2.5 grams of concentrate.

SUIT-ERA LIMITS UNDER THE CRTA

A separate labeling section still governs how an infused pack is built. Each cannabis-infused product intended for consumption must be individually packaged, must state total THC and CBD, and may not include more than 100 milligrams of THC per package. A pack may hold several 10-milligram servings if those servings are scored or otherwise marked. Concentrate jars do not take that milligram lid.

What the Alsip Complaints Claimed

The Wellness Group complaint, case number 1:25-cv-00833, runs 42 pages and names Wellness Group Pharms doing business as Aeriz, plus WGP Holdings, WGP Management, Aeriz LLC, and Aeriz Management. Wellness Group Pharms is licensed as a cultivator, with a center in Anna, Union County, and the complaint says David Thomas manages the Illinois entity.

Alsip’s lawyers, Laura Luisi and Jamie Holz of Luisi Holz Law and Kyle Shamberg of Carroll Shamberg LLC, grouped cartridges, disposables, resin, rosin, hash oil, budder, badder, crumble, and shatter under one label, Vapable Oils. They said those goods are heated without a flame, so they are not smoked, and that the word oil in the infused-product definition pulls them out of the concentrate column.

Aeriz-branded goods named in that complaint include Aeriz, UpNorth, Daze Off, Fig Farms, and 93 Boyz, with third-party filling for Stiiizy. The pleading says those oils shipped in 500-milligram and 1-gram quantities and beat the 100-milligram pack cap by three, five, and ten times. A 500-milligram unit is five times 100 milligrams. A 1,000-milligram pen is ten times that cap.

Each case invoked the Class Action Fairness Act, stating the proposed class had more than 100 members and the amount in controversy exceeded $5 million. The theory of harm was that buyers were sold illegal potency, skipped delayed-onset warnings meant for edibles, and could then add a full 500 milligrams of actual infused product because the possession caps stack. Alsip sought damages under the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act and the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, plus fraud, warranty, and unjust enrichment counts.

Start With the Agriculture Department’s Own Chart

The Illinois Department of Agriculture already publishes the chart licensed makers use when they register a SKU. Under cannabis concentrate products, item 5 is a vape cartridge as a concentrate product, with examples that include a vape, a cartridge, or a disposable pen containing cannabis concentrate. Shatter, wax, live resin, and rosin sit in the next row. Gummies, drinks, topicals, tinctures, and capsules sit in a different block titled cannabis infused products.

HOW AGRICULTURE SPLITS A FINISHED SKU

• Concentrate row: RSO in liquid form, vape cartridges and disposables, and extracted goods such as wax, batter, shatter, sauce, diamonds, resin, rosin, and hash.
• Infused row: edible food, beverages, topicals, tinctures, and capsules or tablets.
• Infuser note: An infuser may buy concentrate only to make infused products and vape products, and may not extract oil from flower.

That last line groups vape products with work an infuser is allowed to do, without moving the cartridge into the gummy column. Illinois State Police training material did the same thing in plain language for officers, and listed vape products as concentrates next to BHO, shatter, and dabs, while it defined infused products as food, beverage, oil, ointment, butter, and other goods not intended to be smoked.

Sister Filings Met the Same Plausibility Wall

Durkin’s order was not a one-off. As of the March 26, 2026 account of his ruling, it was at least the sixth dismissal of a federal lawsuit on this theory, with an Illinois state court case also tossed. He pointed to recent Northern District decisions in McKenzie, Rodriguez v. Cresco Labs, Patterson v. Green Growth Group, and Turek v. Revolution Globel as nearly identical claims that had already failed.

The Wellness Group case sat before Judge Franklin U. Valderrama on a separate docket. Public entries through early 2025 show waivers of service, not a trial on whether Aeriz carts are brownies. The Acreage file is the one Durkin closed out on the pleadings.

THE DATES THAT FRAME THE FIGHT

1. June 25, 2019: The Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act takes effect under Public Act 101-27, creating separate flower, concentrate, and infused-product limits.
2. January 24, 2025: Alsip files the Aeriz and Acreage class actions in Chicago federal court.
3. November 18, 2025: Rodriguez v. Cresco Labs is dismissed, one of the sister rulings Durkin later cited.
4. March 25, 2026: Durkin dismisses Alsip v. Acreage without prejudice and sets an April 9, 2026 deadline to amend.
5. June 12, 2026: Public Act 104-463 doubles adult-use possession amounts, leaving the 100-milligram infused package rule in place.

The later possession change is easy to mix with the lawsuit math. The Illinois cannabis program’s public FAQ now states adult-use possession limits for residents of 60 grams of flower, 1,000 milligrams of THC in infused product, and 10 grams of concentrate, with nonresidents at 30 grams, 500 milligrams, and 5 grams. Those figures took effect on June 12, 2026, after Durkin ruled. They do not rewrite the 100-milligram package cap on an infused item, and they do not move a cartridge out of Agriculture’s concentrate column.

Why Combustion Became the Whole Case

The Act’s definitions do the work the complaints tried to undo. Cannabis concentrate is a product derived by extracting cannabinoids with listed solvents, “with the intended use of smoking or making a cannabis-infused product.” A cannabis-infused product is a beverage, food, oil, ointment, tincture, topical, or other product containing cannabis that is not intended to be smoked. Smoking, in that same definitions section, means the inhalation of smoke caused by the combustion of cannabis.

THE WORD THE SUITS HUNG ON

• Smoking in the Act: Inhalation of smoke caused by combustion of cannabis.
• Plaintiffs’ step: A cartridge is heated by a battery, so it is not combustion, so it is not smoking, so the oil is an infused product.
• Durkin’s reply: Regulators already understand vaping as a form of smoking, which keeps the oil in the concentrate lane.

Vapor and combusted smoke are not the same chemical event, and some corners of cannabis law still treat them as different things. That is the crack the complaints tried to widen. Illinois tax rules close it for retail purposes. The Department of Revenue’s cannabis tax page says “smoked” or “smoking” includes changing cannabis by combustion, heat, electricity, or batteries into a form the user can inhale, and it tells collectors to tax vape products on THC content rather than at the flat 20% rate that applies to cannabis-infused products.

A 1-gram cart that is concentrate is also a high-THC unit for the purchaser excise tax, which hits 25% once adjusted delta-9 THC on non-infused cannabis is above 35%. An infused gummy pack is taxed at 20% of the purchase price no matter the milligram count, so long as it stays in that statutory box. The money trail follows Agriculture’s chart, not the edible theory.

Serving Sizes That Still Bind Gummy Packs

None of the dismissals erased the edible rules. An infused pack meant to be eaten still needs the delayed-intoxication caution that intoxication may be delayed 2 or more hours, plus a note that the facility cultivates cannabis and may process common food allergens. Product that may be smoked still needs the line that smoking is hazardous to your health. Topicals still need “DO NOT EAT” in bold capital letters.

Those serving-size and warning duties are why a 100-milligram gummy tin and a 1-gram cart can sit in the same dispensary case and count as different legal objects. The Alsip theory asked a federal court to collapse that split by reading “oil” and “not intended to be smoked” onto a battery-heated cartridge the agriculture department already registers as a vape. Durkin would not do it on the complaint as written, and he said the missing piece was any claim that companies had lied to the people who approve the labels.

Licensed vape oil in Illinois still moves as concentrate on the state’s own chart, and a 1,000-milligram pen still does not have to live under the 100-milligram gummy lid. The people who bought those pens did not get a court to reprice them as illegal edibles. The package cap, the two-hour caution, and the 10-milligram serving marks remain the rules for the other side of the case.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on court filings, a written judicial order, and Illinois cannabis statutes and agency pages. It is informational only and is not legal advice, medical advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or use any cannabis product. Readers who have a claim, a compliance question, or a health question should consult an Illinois-licensed attorney or a qualified clinician before acting. Case status, possession amounts, and product rules reflect the public sources described here and can change with new filings, new statutes, or new agency guidance.