ALBION, Ill. (AP) — Thousands of legal medical marijuana plants are growing under lights in a warehouse in Albion, a small southeastern Illinois city whose residents are more familiar with corn and soybeans. Ataraxia, which runs the facility, was the state's first cultivation company allowed to start growing plants. It has started harvesting and will be the first to deliver to licensed dispensaries throughout the state by mid-October. The Associated Press was given exclusive access to see the crop.

Here's a brief explanation of the 60- to 67-day growing process:

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'IMMACULATE CONCEPTION'

ALBION, Ill. (AP) — A skunky aroma fills the room in which hundreds of lush marijuana plants grow, some nearly ready for harvest. Grower Ashley Thompson, a former high school agriculture teacher in this rural part of southeastern Illinois, takes the scent of weed home with her.

She doesn't mind. It's the fragrance of money and jobs.

"My family says I smell," said Thompson, who quit the classroom to work for Ataraxia, one of a handful of cultivation centers in Illinois, which is one of 23 states with medical marijuana. "I can't tell though."

Are Jack Johnson and Willie Nelson smoking buddies? It would appear so, since the "Upside Down" singer took to the stage at Farm Aid in Chicag last week performed a song he just wrote about smoking weed with none other than vocal marijuana user and festival founder and president Nelson. The song was entitled "Willie Got Me Stoned" and it is a simple yet effective, piano-lead tune that packs a humorous punch.

ALBION, Ill. (AP) – It’s harvest time in southeastern Illinois. And in one city that means not just corn, but medical marijuana.

The Associated Press recently gained an exclusive look at Illinois’ first legal marijuana crop, and the new farmland ritual beginning amid the cornfields surrounding the historic town of Albion.

A company called Ataraxia is harvesting medical marijuana that will soon be sold in dispensaries around the state.

Ataraxia is the first center to make it to the finish line after running a gantlet of state requirements.

ping to jump-start a struggling industry, an Illinois medical marijuana business is launching a $1 million marketing campaign — despite a ban on advertising by growers in the state.

Cresco Labs, which plans to open three pot cultivation centers, on Wednesday announced it will spread its message through an outreach campaign that includes print advertising, radio commercials, billboards, social media and notices in health publication.

The ads feature health-related images like a swimmer and a jogger, with messages such as, "Welcome to a state of relief. Medical cannabis. Now growing in Illinois." The promotions feature the company logo and refer people to more information at crescolabs.com.

One of the state’s largest medical marijuana companies wants to make sure seriously ill Illinoisans consider the new drug.

Whether you are pro or con on the subject of marijuana in general, medical cannabis is here and happening in Illinois.

Huge news for drug reform and residents of Cook County. According to the county’s State Attorney Anita Alvarez, anyone caught with 30 grams of marijuana or less on their first or second offense will not be prosecuted. On a third offense offenders will be sent to drug schooling.

“What we are doing is simply not working,”

Alvarez said Monday morning.

She noted the huge waste time and money spent on cycling small time drug offenders in and out of the penal system, with the new approach based on “treatment instead of traditional prosecution.”

CANTON — The owners of Salveo Health and Wellness hope to be dispensing medical marijuana within the next few weeks.

Scott Miller, CEO of Salveo, 3100 N. Main St., says he’s mainly waiting on two things before opening his doors to people who qualify to use medical marijuana for any of 38 diseases: for the State of Illinois to complete the verification system and for the first crop to be ready for cultivation.

Miller told a crowd of over 30 during an educational seminar Wednesday evening that the finishing touches on the dispensary, the only one of its kind in the region, were just finished a few hours earlier.

Some of us are still processing this whole marijuana legalization deal. For many people, it’s kind of hard to believe legalization is actually really happening — it’s no longer simply a topic of discussion marijuana smokers debate over, it’s right here and right now. Imagine going back in time and telling yourself 10 or 15 years ago that in 2015, recreational pot would be legal in four states — and even Washington D.C.