Illinois' Medical Cannabis Advisory Board Reviewing 14 Additional Conditions or Diseases

SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Medical Cannabis Advisory Board (board) is reviewing 22 petitions requesting 14 medical conditions or diseases be added to the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act.  After its review, the board will hold a hearing on May 4, 2015 at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago to discuss and listen to technical evidence concerning those 14 medical conditions or diseases.  The board will then make a recommendation to the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health about those debilitating conditions or diseases that would benefit from the medical use of cannabis and should be considered for addition to the program.

The 14 conditions or diseases for which petitions will be considered are:

 
• Anorexia Nervosa
• Anxiety
• Chronic Post Operative Pain
• Diabetes
• Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome
• Essential Thrombcythemia with a JAK 2 mutation
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Migraine
• Neuro-Behcet’s Autoimmune disease
• Neuropathy
• Osteoarthritis
• Polycystic kidney disease
• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• Superior canal dehiscence syndrome 
 

Individuals who want to present technical evidence about a petition being reviewed on May 4, 2015 are required to file a statement of intent in writing no later than 15 days prior to the date of the hearing, or by April 18, 2015, with the Division of Medical Cannabis.

Citizens can submit petitions to IDPH twice annually – January 1-January 31 and July 1-July 31.  The board will meet twice a year to consider those petitions. 

The following are members of the board and the experience they bring.

 
• Chairperson – Leslie Mendoza Temple - family medicine
• Vice Chairperson – Michael Fine - registered qualifying patient
• Marissa Arevalo – parent of a registered patient under age 18
• Paul Bachmann – registered qualifying patient
• James Champion – registered qualifying patient, veteran
• Eric Christoff – internal medicine
• John Knaus – Medical oncology
• Jacqueline Leskovec – Nurse
• David McCurdy – medical ethics
• Theresa Miller – Nurse
• Jyotin Parikh – pharmacy
• Nestor Ramirez - pediatrics
• Allison Weathers – neurology