Illinois Begins Medical Cannabis Registrations This Month

The Illinois medical cannabis market, despite delays, is starting to register patients this month in a process that will last most of the fall.  Patients are given two windows to apply depending on the alphabetical order of their last names.

The state also released final medical cannabis licensing application documents in the first week of September. Because of these new additions, the market has evolved throughout the year on several fronts.  

In July, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a law expanding medical access to patients with seizure disorders.  It is expected that this alone could increase the existing medical market in state significantly. Advocates for patients are still lobbying strongly to expand access for those still excluded which include those suffering from PTSD and chronic pain— two of the largest subsets of medical users across the country.  

The success of adding epilepsy as a covered condition in Illinois also took place as part of a wave of similar actions in other states this summer to expand medical use to this segment of the patient population.  Additional tweaks to the law in state this year have included lightening regulations for patients.

These two seemingly minor changes to current law alone, however, are widely expected to increase the potential market for the state’s expected 60 dispensaries which will likely open for business by next summer.

With that said, the stigma of cannabis in the state of Illinois has had to face a number of already daunting challenges that extend far beyond where to buy medication.  This means facing down the state’s tough no tolerance DUI laws even to get to a dispensary, which are in many, cases increasingly zoned to normally inaccessible parts of the community such as former industrial zones.  A small amount of cannabis possession in the state has yet to be decriminalized as well.  These, among other things, are reason enough to root for the progression of the medicinal cannabis market, the accessibility of the substance and the continued efforts of reform worldwide.