It had been a long time coming, but Illinois' pilot program for medical marijuana has finally kicked off last November. It's been slow growing for the industry so far, and there are many restrictions. The business HCI Alternatives has two medical marijuana dispensaries in the state now.
One in Collinsville has been open for about two months, and one in Springfield is about a month old. The marijuana comes from legal growers in Illinois and is given to patients who are able to certify they have a condition that the state considers marijuana to have medicinal benefits for, like cancer and Chron's disease. We recently spoke with Jay Cook, director of education and outreach for HCI Alternatives:
You can also hear a web extra; a portion of the interview we weren't able to get to on-air that includes talk about whether insurance covers the costs for patients (and what the cost is), plus what's being done to keep the product off the black-market:
