{"id":6140,"date":"2018-01-17T13:58:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T18:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lcpllutzlivetotell.org\/?p=6140"},"modified":"2019-08-08T12:48:34","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T16:48:34","slug":"illinois-pain-patients-must-medical-marijuana-access-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=6140","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Pain Patients Must Have Medical Marijuana Access, Judge Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"leafly-article-category-tags\"><a class=\"category-link-179\" href=\"https:\/\/www.leafly.com\/news\/politics\" rel=\"category tag\">POLITICS<\/a><\/div>\n<h1>Illinois Pain Patients Must Have Medical Marijuana Access, Judge Rules<\/h1>\n<div class=\"leafly-social-byline-bar\">\n<div class=\"leafly-byline-container\">\n<div class=\"leafly-byline-text-container\">\n<div class=\"leafly-byline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.leafly.com\/news\/author\/leafly-staff\">LEAFLY STAFF<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"leafly-publish-date\">January 17, 2018<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"leafly-social-share-link\">\n<div class=\"leafly-custom-social-links\">\n<div class=\"leafly-comment-count\">\n<div class=\"leafly-standard-article-header\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/d3atagt0rnqk7k.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/17102541\/chronic-pain-qualifiying-condition-1280x800.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"leafly-header-image-caption\">An Illinois judge overturned the decision of Dr. Nirav Shah (above), director of the State Department of Health, who had twice rejected intractable pain as a qualifying condition. (Mike Groll\/AP<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"uncode-wrapper uncode-share\">\n<div class=\"share-button share-buttons share-inline share-bigger sharer-0\">\n<div class=\"social load top center networks-9\"><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Cook County judge has ordered the Illinois State Department of Health to add intractable pain to the department\u2019s list of conditions that allow patients legal access to medical cannabis.<\/p>\n<p>Health Department Director Dr. Nirav Shah had twice previously refused to add the condition to the list. In 2016,\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">the now-defunct Illinois Medical Cannabis Advisory Board voted 10-0 to add intractable pain to the state\u2019s list of qualifying conditions. But\u00a0<\/span>Shah denied the addition, citing\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">a \u201clack of high-quality data\u201d as his reason.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"leafly-pull-quote\">Judge Raymond Mitchell said the state&#8217;s decision to exclude chronic pain was &#8216;clearly erroneous.&#8217;<\/div>\n<p>Cook County Judge Raymond Mitchell ruled that Shah\u2019s decision was \u201cclearly erroneous,\u201d noting that two medical journals had reviewed 45 clinical studies of cannabis used to treat pain. \u201cThe record shows that individuals with intractable pain would benefit from the medical use of cannabis,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling could have profound implications for Illinois\u2019 medical cannabis program. The state currently lists\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.dph.illinois.gov\/topics-services\/prevention-wellness\/medical-cannabis\/debilitating-conditions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">40 debilitating conditions<\/a>, but among patients nationwide, intractable pain is far and away the most frequently cited reason for the use of medical marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>The judge\u2019s ruling came as the result of a lawsuit filed by Ann Mednick, a Rolling Meadows woman\u00a0<span class=\"s1\">who has taken opioid pills to cope with extreme pain caused by osteoarthritis but wants a treatment with fewer side effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cIllinois is years behind the times,\u201d Mednick\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/news\/local\/breaking\/ct-met-medical-marijuana-pain-illinois-ruling-20180116-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">told the Chicago Tribune<\/a>. \u201cThe state needs to get (it) together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">A health department spokeswoman says Mitchell\u2019s ruling will be appealed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Retrieved from: https:\/\/www.leafly.com\/news\/politics\/illinois-pain-patients-must-have-medical-marijuana-access-judge-rules<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>POLITICS Illinois Pain Patients Must Have Medical Marijuana Access, Judge Rules LEAFLY STAFF January 17, 2018 An Illinois judge overturned the decision of Dr. Nirav Shah (above), director of the State Department of Health, who had twice rejected intractable pain as a qualifying condition. (Mike Groll\/AP Cook County judge has &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannabis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}