Why did you oppose it before? Why did you switch your position?
You’ll notice that I work on a lot of criminal justice legislation. I used to be a prosecutor [in the Kendall County State’s Attorney’s Office], and my background was in law enforcement, and my initial inclination was that it wasn’t the right thing to do. I also thought the bill was initially written in a broad way. I expressed my concerns to Lou Lang. Now it lists specific illnesses—such as cancer, lupus, and Crone Crohn’s disease—and there are some limits on how the marijuana can be grown and produced. So I think it’s a better bill.
And the more I talked to people and heard their stories, it seemed to me to be an issue of compassion. I talked to people in the medical field, and doctors have told me that in some cases this is really the only thing that works as a pain killer. I didn’t know how we could deny it to people who are suffering. […]
What’s the reaction been like? What have you heard from other Republicans?
I think four or five have said they’re going to vote for it since the changes to the original bill. Overall, people have been pretty positive. Some people have been nasty—like the Illinois Family Institute. But that’s to be expected.
Those four or five new GOP votes could be crucial. We’ll see soon enough.
* Rep. Lou Lang’s changes to his bill also put some former organizational opponents on the sidelines…
The Illinois State Police, Fraternal Order of Police and the Illinois Chamber of Commerce are among recent groups that have now taken a neutral position, a change from their previous opposition to the bill.
Also contributing to our support for this bill is our hope that efforts like this across the country will help push the U.S. Food and Drug and Administration to rethink its policy on the medicinal value of marijuana and push for more research. There currently is a licensed drug on the market, Marinol, which contains a synthetic version of THC, the main therapeutic component of marijuana. But it is regarded as substantially less effective for pain and nausea than natural cannabis and its capsule form is difficult for patients with severe nausea to ingest.
We don’t think smoking is a healthy or precise delivery system for any form of medicine, but until the FDA encourages development of better alternatives, it’s all that is available.
We support this bill while acknowledging that California’s lax and haphazard medical marijuana program has become a joke, allowing just about anyone who wants marijuana to get it. The bill currently in the General Assembly uses the California example as a cautionary tale and carefully avoids its many failures. It’s a mix of compassion and caution that the House and Senate should approve.
