COLLINSVILLE - Friday afternoon marked a new beginning for Mike Guess of Belleville.

Guess, 32, an Air Force veteran, had guided his red Honda Civic into the parking lot of HCI Alternatives, the metro-east’s only medical cannabis dispensary that has opened so far. The married father of two checked his wallet to make sure he had the $200 in cash he had saved up, then walked as steadily as he could on pain-wracked legs to the dispensary’s front door.

HCI had opened for business on Monday, and four days later Guess had shown up to see if some of the strains of medical cannabis that HCI sells could help him. For nearly a decade, persistent migraine headaches and nerve pain from fibromyalgia and damaged spinal discs had plagued him day and night.

For the second time in five months, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signaled his distaste for broadening the state’s new medical marijuana program, declining to add chronic pain and seven other health conditions to the list of diseases that can be treated with the drug.

The Department of Public Health announced the decision, spurning recommendations of an expert advisory board largely appointed by the governor’s predecessor, Democrat Pat Quinn.

The expert panel reviewed medical evidence and listened to patient testimony before recommending the eight conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects many military veterans. Other conditions recommended but rejected Friday were autism, irritable bowel syndrome, osteoarthritis and four pain syndromes.

Former Super Bowl champion and Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon says an unfairly demonized drug helped him recover from the pain of his football career: medical marijuana.

COLLINSVILLE • Metro East’s first marijuana dispensary looks like a spa.

After signing the paperwork and before choosing which marijuana flower, someone with a medical permit can enjoy complimentary bottled water, Keurig coffee and granola bars in the clean and bright waiting room at HCI Alternatives. The point, said chief executive Chris Stone, is to make patients feel comfortable, and to counter perceptions some might have that dispensaries are sketchy, unsafe places.

“It’s not Colorado, it’s not California. It’s Illinois,” Stone said.

COLLINSVILLE, Ill. (AP) — The St. Louis area's first medical marijuana dispensary is slated to open in the city's Illinois suburbs.

HCI Alternatives in Collinsville plans a grand opening at noon Monday at a retail location adjacent to the Illinois State Police's regional headquarters.

A second St. Louis-area dispensary in the village of Sauget near East St. Louis is also expected to open soon.

The state issued 23 dispensary licenses through mid-January but has set a cap of 60 locations statewide in the four-year pilot project. Legal marijuana sales began in Illinois in early November.

Medical marijuana dispensary owners in Chicago would be spared the requirement of hiring security guards to be on-site around the clock in a move aldermen framed as a way to help drive down costs.

The City Council Finance Committee approved the amendment Wednesday, paving the way for the full council to vote next month on the plan to require guards at the dispensaries only when they're open for business.

Sponsor Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, said since the dispensaries opened last year, they haven't made as much money as some thought they would.

By John Schroyer

If anyone knows the Illinois medical cannabis scene, it’s Bob Morgan.

Morgan was designated by former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn while he was still in workplace to supervise the implementation of the state’s MMJ program, which Quinn signed into law in 2013.

Morgan stepped down from the post in Might 2015and moved into private practice with a Chicago law office.

In his new function, he still works carefully with the marijuana market, however not simply in Illinois– he likewise does consulting deal with business in up-and-coming markets, such as Maryland and Hawaii.

Illinois has a medical marijuana program, which is great for the patients that can participate in the program. However, there are many, many patients that don’t qualify to be a patient in the program because they don’t suffer from a condition that is on the list of qualifying conditions. Medical marijuana helps them alleviate their suffering, and several other states recognize the condition they suffer from as qualifying to become a medical marijuana patient in those states.

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, INC. (OTCPink:PNPL) (the “Company”), a publicly-traded company that offers cannabis industry consulting, technology, investments, turn-key property rentals, and branding concepts to businesses in the legal cannabis industry, announced today that after a 10 month registration process, the state of Illinois granted the Company’s consulting client Nature’s Treatment of Illinois, Inc. (“NTI”) a Notice of Conditional Approval regarding its dispensing organization application for registration.  NTI was awarded one of only approximately 60 dispensary conditional registration approvals in Illinois.  The dispensary will be the only one in Illinois’ District 7.

It's been more than two years since the Illinois Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program went into effect, but legally distributed pot has only recently become a reality in the state. As of November 9 of last year, more than a dozen dispensaries were open statewide, and patients with one of 39 approved medical conditions and a doctor's recommendation became free to find relief by way of some sweet, sweet cheeba. But Illinois' medical marijuana bill is one of the most restrictive in the nation, and the Illinois Department of Health (IDPH) had approved just 4,000 patients as of January 6, which isn't exactly enough to sustain an industry.