Medical Marijuana Advocates In Illinois Losing Hope Amid Program’s Delays

January 30, 2015
Chicago

By Mary Wisniewski
CHICAGO, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Advocates for medical pot in Illinois are endangered that delays in arising placement licenses, exacerbated by a change in governors, is gripping a drug from patients who need it.
Former Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, who upheld medical marijuana, left bureau in Jan though arising licenses for expansion and distribution, withdrawal it to his successor, Republican Governor Bruce Rauner.
Rauner, who has voiced doubt about a chartering process, wants a consummate authorised review, his bureau said, that means some-more time before a 2013 law can be implemented.
For patients that means no wish of removing a drug until during slightest Jun even if a Rauner administration issues licenses in a subsequent month, pronounced Chris Lindsey, legislative researcher for a Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit.
The law requires plants to be grown in Illinois, that takes 4-1/2 months in a best of circumstances.
“We’re flattering endangered – we’ve been watchful for a prolonged time,” Lindsey said. Supporters had hoped licenses would be expelled final fall.
Illinois is one of 23 states and a District of Columbia that permits medical marijuana. Illinois’ hearing module expires in 2017.
Lindsey pronounced he believes Rauner is “trying to be careful, though in a routine he’s unequivocally unwell a severely ill patients in Illinois.”
The Quinn administration prepared lists of businesses competent to accept a licenses before he left office, according to recently expelled documents.
A Quinn administration orator pronounced that while state agencies done estimable swell evaluating applicants, Quinn motionless to spin a pursuit over to Rauner for correct review.
Rauner’s bureau pronounced it will impute a commentary to a state Attorney General’s office.
Democratic State Representative Lou Lang, a medical pot supporter, pronounced Quinn’s staff used blind scoring procedures to discharge bias in picking who should get licenses, and it was a contrition Quinn didn’t emanate them.
“Now we have a administrator who’s not a large fan of a module and has to be assured to pierce forward,” Lang said.
Lang pronounced a studious or intensity distributor who got a high subordinate measure might sue to pierce things along.
Marla Levi, 51, who has mixed sclerosis, pronounced she felt tricked by Quinn.
But she doesn’t mind a Rauner administration going by a lists again to safeguard a right people will be flourishing and dispensing a drug.
“We know how supervision has worked in Illinois … we wish to know everything,” Levi said. (Editing by Eric Walsh)