Illinois Medical Marijuana Patients In Limbo

606 days. That's how long it’s been since the Illinois General Assembly passed the medical cannabis law. Today, after all that time, nobody can say when seriously ill patients will be able to access medical cannabis.

[caption id="attachment_8458" align="alignright" width="176"] Gov. Bruce Rauner[/caption]

If you are an Illinois resident, please take a moment to tell the governor the wait is inexcusable. Click here for instructions on how to call Gov. Rauner’s office and demand he use his authority to advance this program. Or, click here to send an email.

On May 17, 2013, a coalition of seriously ill patients, doctors, legislators, community leaders, and MPP’s lobbying team saw passage of a compassionate law that was 10 years in the making. Sadly, the best-case scenario is that it will take two years from that date for Illinois to provide relief to those patients.

Since then, the state has developed rules in a system that is one of the most regulated — and some say one of the most over-regulated — systems in the country. Businesses applied four months ago and press reports indicated licenses would be issued by the end of 2014. Yet they still have not been selected, meaning patients are at least four more months from access (the amount of time it takes for a plant to produce harvestable cannabis).