BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Illinois health officials say about 2,500 residents have applied for medical marijuana cards, even as the four-year pilot program remains stalled in some parts of the state.
 
Department of Health spokeswoman Melaney Arnold tells the Belleville News Democrat (http://bit.ly/1HnY0cb ) that 1,600 of those applicants have received approval letters.
 
She could not say where the applicants live.
 
A series of legal challenges over cultivation centers are playing out in several areas of the state.
 
That means some patients entitled to apply for medical cannabis cards are waiting.
 

(CBS) – Some Illinois doctors are reluctant to begin prescribing medical marijuana for patients who qualify.

CBS 2’s Dorothy Tucker reports on why physicians are putting up roadblocks.

“I asked my primary care about the medical marijuana card. She said she would not be able to,” 19-year-old Chris Favela says.

He’s convinced marijuana will help him cope with the numerous ailments associated with Multiple Sclerosis. He was disappointed when his doctor refused to sign the papers recommending him for the state’s new medical marijuana program.

“She simply said it wasn’t even possible,” Favela says.

“It’s not surprising. We’ve been experiencing this for a long time,” says Victoria Mendicino, who works for Good Intentions.

The Illinois Department of Agriculture must turn over some of the applications it considered during the time it awarded medical marijuana growing licenses to various bidders, two courts ruled Thursday. The decisions centers on a lawsuit filed in February claiming state regulators may have mishandled the process of granting licenses and have kept the process secret. Turning over some of the applications would give lawyers a chance to review the process, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Lawmakers in Springfield will consider several marijuana bills this session, including at least one that would decriminalize small amounts of pot.

Other proposed laws would:

• Extend the now-delayed medical marijuana pilot program.
• Add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of conditions that make a patient qualified to use medical marijuana.
• Allow adults to possess or grow small amounts of marijuana.

Several other marijuana-related bills also are proposed.

And proponents of legalized marijuana see this influx of legislation as “baby steps” on the way to legalization.

The marijuana growing permits have been printed and are ready for pickup, a state spokeswoman says.

The state’s movement on the permits comes after a company suing the state was granted a temporary legal victory in part because the marijuana permits had not been officially handed out.

The state spokeswoman, Kristi Jones, would not comment on the timing, but she said in an email, “The cultivation center permits are printed and ready for pick-up at the Illinois Department of Agriculture in Springfield.”

Authorities found more than $10 million worth of marijuana hidden in a shipment of frozen avocado pulp at a west suburban cold storage facility in Illinois.

Workers at the facility in Lyons called police on March 4 after they noticed a suspicious shipment had arrived, bearing instructions “for an urgent pick-up,” according to the Cook County sheriff’s office.

Sheriff’s police responded to the building on the 8400 block of West 47th Street with a narcotics-sniffing dog, which detected drugs inside the pallets, police said.

Authorities ultimately found 2,100 pounds of marijuana—more than a ton—hidden in roughly 1,500 packages of frozen avocado pulp, police said. The drugs were packed into flat bricks and covered in the pulp.

ANNA, Illinois. — A medical marijuana business in far southern Illinois intends to start construction this month of a 27,000-square-foot facility that would produce a first harvest in late fall.

Colorado marijuana companies: Denver’s United Cannabis envisions “Ganja Co-op” for Jamaica pot growers

Wellness Group Pharms’ managing partner Paul Montes (MAHN’-tis) of Elmhurst says backing from a Denver cannabis consulting company has been crucial to his operation near Anna, Illinois. Wellness Group Pharms is one of 18 companies awarded permits to grow marijuana in Illinois.

AmeriCann, Inc. (OTCQX Markets: ACAN), a company that designs, develops and owns advanced medical cannabis facilities, announced that it has expanded the scope of its partnership in Illinois. The Company’s partner, Wellness Group Pharms (WGP), recently received one of the eighteen highly coveted medical cannabis cultivation and processing licenses from the State of Illinois.

The amended agreement calls for AmeriCann to serve as the developer of a new facility to be called the Illinois Medical Cannabis Center (“IMCC”). WGP plans to utilize the IMCC facilities to cultivate, process and distribute medical cannabis to many of the state’s 52 newly licensed medical dispensaries.

Want a stake in the medical marijuana business but missed out on getting a coveted state license? You might not be too late.

Weed businesses that scored licenses to grow in Illinois are looking for investors.

But if the chance to get in on the ground floor of what’s already a $2.7 billion industry in the United States sounds too good to be true, insiders say the tiny number of patients so far permitted to use marijuana in Illinois is causing them sleepless nights.

They’re looking for tens of millions of dollars in financing to build marijuana farms — and to keep running while hoping the state will loosen its restrictions on who can use the drug.

Ilinois regulators Monday awarded a medical marijuana growing license to PharmaCann LLC, to replace a firm that gave up its license in the northwestern part of the state.

The approval means that PharmaCann, based in Oak Park, has won approval for two grow centers and four dispensaries statewide, more than any other business in the state.

Green Thumb Industries LLC gave up its license to grow marijuana in Dixon last week after it didn't come up with the required $2 million surety bond or escrow account and the $200,000 permit fee. Local officials said Green Thumb, which also has licenses to operate two other grow centers, expressed concerns about the cost of the license while only about 1,000 patients have been approved to get medical marijuana.