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Government

Application Help for Medical Marijuana

The Rock Island County Health Department can help people qualify for medical marijuana. Monday it announced joining a statewide program to help the Illinois Department of Public Health.

The Department's chief operating officer, Janet Hill, says the state has been handling applications up until now, but it found that 90 per cent of them have some sort of mistake or important information left out. So it asked county health departments to help.

"The application is fairly complicated . So they just want to make sure there's some compassionate  support to help. "

Potential recipients of medical marijuana must fill out an application, get a background check, submit a passport type photograph, and have a doctor certify they have at least one of 41 medical conditions. They include ALS, Lupus, M.S., Parkinson's Disease, and PTSD.

Hill says you don't have to complete the application all at once.

"You create an account on the IDPH website. So people can come and start it with us and then we can help them get back to it. They'll have their own login name and password."

Hill says the Rock Island County Health Department will offer this assistance on Fridays by appointment - other days of the week are possible too, but only by appointment. The help is free, but the application is not. 

So far, about 270 residents of the county have successfully applied to join the medical cannabis program in Illinois, and 30,000 have been approved statewide

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.