Far North Side Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th) doesn’t want a medical marijuana dispensary approved by the state to open near a large West Ridge neighborhood park.

“I do support medical marijuana — I want to make that clear — but I’m concerned about the location,” the alderman said.

Her vocal opposition comes as 420 Capital Management, the company with a state license to open to the dispensary at 6501 N. Western Ave., needs to win a crucial city zoning permit allowing the medical marijuana shop to open.

Silverstein said the store on Western would be too close to Warren Park, located less than a block north.

Dallas Cowboys defensive end Randy Gregory runs a drill during a minicamp for rookie players Saturday, May 9, 2015 at the team's Valley Ranch practice facility in Irving, Texas. (G.J. McCarthy/The Dallas Morning News) 05102015xSPORTS

The agonizing wait until he hears his name, the way he handles the public flogging brought about by his actions, tells a lot about Randy Gregory.

Randy and his parents return to their Chicago hotel after the first night of the NFL draft. Kenneth and Mary ache for their son. They think back to the moment nearly 16 years earlier when both caught a glimpse of Randy’s love for the sport. The idea of one team after another passing on their son the next night as the cameras capture his reaction to each painful slight is almost too much to take.

They warned us this would happen. The states where recreational marijuana use is legal are also the states where marijuana is least expensive. The price of an ounce of weed ranges so widely from state to state that someone who smokes an ounce a month can move from Pittsburgh to Portland, Ore., and save enough money for a year’s worth of premium cable, the perfect companion for your habit.

An applicant who was denied a license is suing the state.

CHICAGO -- Illinois has turned over 13,000 pages of documents to attorneys challenging how the state awarded one medical-marijuana business license, marking the first release of such material.

While the records remain closed to journalists and the general public, the disclosure represents a win for attorneys representing a disappointed applicant and might eventually shed light on a secretive process. The case is one of several similar lawsuits being closely watched by the new marijuana industry.

Following months of wrangling, the Colorado Department of Agriculture has secured a permit from federal drug enforcement officials to import industrial hemp seed from foreign countries.

The seeds are essential to kick-start Colorado’s hemp industry, which state agriculture officials say has seen a bottleneck in research and cultivation due to a lack of viable seed stocks. 

Colorado’s hemp registration program has taken off since the implementation of Amendment 64, which also legalized recreational marijuana in the state. With the new federal permit, the first shipments of seed could be here in two weeks, mostly from Italian universities.

Illinois is continuing to approve patients to use medical marijuana, with about 300 more approval letters sent in April.

The Illinois Department of Public Health released the updated numbers Wednesday. The department has issued about 2,300 approval letters to qualifying marijuana patients since September.

The health department says about 20,800 people have logged onto the program's patient application website. Of those, about 3,000 have submitted an application.

The tally falls short of the number program officials hoped would enroll in the first year. In July, former program coordinator Bob Morgan said "thousands, hopefully tens of thousands" were expected to enroll.

Medical marijuana has been just out of reach for Illinois residents for months, despite the fact that lawmakers made it legal more than a year ago.

So how soon will residents be able to actually buy the stuff?

The short answer is some time this fall, if all goes according to plan. The long answer takes into account what happens when things don't go according to plan, which has characterized the entire legal process from the beginning.

Medical marijuana became legal in Illinois more than a year ago, but there are several more steps that had to happen before residents could take part in the pilot program and start purchasing. 

No Medical Marijuana for Diabetes in Illinois

An Illinois advisory board has voted against recommending that anxiety and diabetes be added to the list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana.

The vote at a public hearing in Chicago is one of several votes expected Monday on various conditions submitted by public petition. Board members said anxiety was too broad, but left open the possibility of adding severe anxiety to the list in the future.

The board approved the use of medical marijuana for the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome by a vote of 10-0 and the treatment of migraines by a vote of 8-2. The board also approved medical marijuana for patients with diabetic and peripheral neuropathy, osteoarthritis and polycystic kidney disease.

Illinois residents could use medical marijuana to treat chronic migraines and post-traumatic stress disorder, but not anxiety or diabetes under recommendations that an advisory board agreed to on Monday.

The board, which is made up of doctors, nurses, patients and a pharmacist, held a public meeting in Chicago to consider whether to expand Illinois' nascent medical marijuana program to include the treatment of additional diseases and disorders. The state Department of Public Health will consider the recommendations.

Besides chronic migraines and PTSD, the board voted to recommend adding osteoarthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, peripheral neuropathy and diabetic neuropathy to the list of qualifying conditions for the medical marijuana program.

Cannabis aficionados are often fans of a solid play on words or well-placed pun — something that even applies to selecting the right stock symbol apparently.

New edibles company Nutritional High, which will soon sell its products in Colorado and Illinois, just went public in America via the stock symbol SPLIF. So while more established companies have their sly nods embedded in their stock symbols — Anheuser-Busch InBev’s BUD, Harley-Davidson’s HOG and Southwest Airline’s LUV — this little cannabis company rooted in Denver and Toronto has SPLIF marking its pot stocks involvement.

From the word’s entry in The Modern Cannabis Lexicon: “Spliff — A combination of tobacco and marijuana rolled together, often in Europe, that can at times be a cone shape.”