Thursday, April 8, 2010

Medical Marijuana Is Already Legal in Illinois-- Chicago Reader

In addition to an update on current legislation to legalize marijuana, this analysis of the current law is very interesting.

In 1978 the Illinois legislature passed a Cannabis Control Act to try to bring common sense to the state's drug laws….

the act gave the Illinois Department of Human Services permission to "authorize" licensed physicians to use it to treat "glaucoma, the side effects of chemotherapy or radiation therapy in cancer patients or such other procedure certified to be medically necessary."

But there were two catches. The first was that Human Services was merely allowed to give doctors this authority—not required to. The second was that it could act only "with the written approval of the Department of State Police."

In other words, two state departments had to create new policies before medical cannabis could actually be prescribed and provided. To this day neither has

Medical Marijuana Is Already Legal in Illinois | Politics | Chicago Reader

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