Governor signs legislation expanding the state’s medical marijuana program

Posted on August 13, 2019
Gov. JB Pritzker signs legislation Monday making the state’s medical marijuana program permanent. (Dave Dahl/WJBC)

 

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – A Schaumburg girl – hit with cancer and epilepsy before turning five – is now a middle schooler with a future, thanks to medical marijuana.

Her mother, Maureen Surin, told a crowd in a Springfield hospital auditorium Monday as Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation making the program permanent and adding some conditions — including chronic pain — to the approved list.

“We tried many neuromedicines,” said Surin. “After a concussion and brain surgery two years ago, we said we had to take a different path. This little girl is trying to grow, and her poor body can’t grow if it’s drugged up and she can’t think or talk or walk or speak or write.”

State Sen. Laura Fine (D-Glenview) told how a car crash changed her husband’s life because he lost an arm – then how medical marijuana changed his life again, because opioids prescribed for pain took him out of family activities.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].

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