By Nick McClintock

SPRINGFIELD- Many veterans in the state are waiting for both Governor Rauner and the Illinois Medical Marijuna Board to act on bills sitting on their desks.

Crystal Knight with Medical Cannabis Consulting hopes that action comes soon. “Both of those items qualify a lot of veterans, a lot of patients in the state of Illinois with conditions like PTSD, and osteo-arthritus, and IBS, and migraines, and that is just really important.” Knight said. “It’s important if we want the Medical Marijuana Program to survive.”
11 conditions were recommended for approval in early May, after the Illinois Medical Cannabis Advisory Board was petitioned by residents to review new disorders. The list is only recommendations from the advisory board, which were ultimately be passed on to the Illinois Department of Public Health for a final decision on which conditions might be added to the list of those approved for treatment with medical marijuana.

Knight says many patients in her office near Chicago are just hoping to clear out their medicine cabinets. “I have several hundred patients in my office where that is why they have come to us, because they have this list of 10-30 medications they they have tried throughout their lives,” Knight said. ” And they have all these side effects that with marijuana you don’t see that.”

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, approximately 23,700 citizens have started the Illinois Medical Cannabis Pilot Program patient registry application process since the  IDPH began accepting applications on September 2, 2014. Of those, approximately 3,500 have submitted a complete application. IDPH has issued 2,800 approval letters to register qualifying patients. Ten applications for persons under 18 years of age have been approved.

Further updates for the Medical Marijuana Pilot Program can be found here: http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/mcpp/Pages/default.aspx.