Medical Marijuana Sales to Start Monday at Schaumburg Dispensary

Four suburban dispensaries will begin selling medical marijuana Monday.

Growers began shipping marijuana to the dispensaries on Friday after getting the green light from the state, the Chicago Tribune reports. The four suburban dispensaries registered to sell marijuana are in North Aurora, Oswego, Addison and Mundelein with four other Illinois dispensaries located in Canton, Ottawa, Quincy and Marion. The number of licensed dispensaries is expected to grow to a dozen by the end of November and to 25 by the end of the year, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

For patients like Ed Norville, a 73-year-old with colon cancer, the “news is significant,” according to WGN News. He’s among the 3,300 patients licensed to purchase marijuana in the state and says he hopes it will help him control some of his symptoms.

PharmaCannis will operate three of the Illinois dispensaries in North Aurora, Schaumburg and Ottawa. The company recently held open houses at its locations where potential patients stopped out to learn more about medical marijuana and the process for obtaining state-issued medical marijuana cards.

Those cards were shipped on Oct. 30, according to the Illinois Department of Health.

For the four founding partners of PharmaCannis, the decision to leave professional careers to start a medical marijuana businesses was rooted in deep, personal reasons. All of the founders have family members who suffer from medical conditions that are state-approved to be treated with medical marijuana.

Norah Scott, chief human resources officer for PharmaCannis, said her father applied for his medical marijuana card last September.

“We look at this as an opportunity to help critically ill patients,” Scott said.

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The qualifying 39 medical conditions include: cancer, glaucoma, HIV, hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, agitation of Alzheimer’s disease, muscular dystrophy, severe fibromyalgia, spinal cord disease, Tarlov cysts, hydromyelia, syringomyelia, Rheumatoid arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s. The full Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Act can be viewed here.

More information on how to obtain a medical marijuana card and for updates on registered dispensaries, visit the Illinois Department of Health website.