Industry built for medical cannabis patients leaving them behind

When Illinois legalized medical cannabis in 2015, it was hailed as a breakthrough for patients battling cancer, epilepsy, chronic pain and other serious conditions. The promise was simple: safe, effective relief for those who needed it most.

A decade later, that promise is fading. Patients still struggle with sky-high prices, reluctant physicians, a confusing registration process and shrinking access to the very products designed for their care.

The shift began in 2020, when Illinois legalized recreational cannabis. Big corporations — multistate operators — swept in, buying up patient-focused dispensaries. Profit replaced care, and products tailored for medical use disappeared. Where once you could find low-THC tinctures, transdermal patches and capsules designed to ease symptoms without impairment, now shelves are dominated by high-THC products aimed at recreational users.

The numbers tell the story. Illinois has more than 257 dispensaries, yet only 55 — 21% — allow the state’s 142,000 registered medical patients to buy at reduced tax rates. That leaves patients scrambling to track down therapeutic products — or traveling to Michigan, where options are better and prices are lower. Illinois loses revenue, and patients lose care.

Let’s be clear: The medical cannabis program built the foundation for Illinois’ cannabis industry. Without patients, there would be no market. Yet patients are now treated as an afterthought. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Illinois can still deliver on its original promise by taking a few common-sense steps:

1. Put patients back at the center: Require dispensaries to carry low-THC, minor cannabinoid and patient-focused products like full extract cannabis oil, topicals and suppositories.
2. Train dispensary staff: Educated staff should help patients navigate choices safely in partnership with health care providers.
3. Educate professionals: Fund medical, nursing and pharmacy schools to include cannabis training so providers can make informed recommendations.
4. Educate the public: Launch campaigns on safe use, covering issues like driving, addiction and risks for youth and pregnancy.
5. Open all dispensaries to medical pricing: Patients deserve fair access at every licensed location, not just a handful.

Illinois’ cannabis industry has grown rapidly, but growth is not maturity. True maturity means honoring the patients who started it all. They built this system. Now the system must work for them.

It’s time to put patients first — again.

Dr. Leslie Mendoza Temple, medical director, Endeavor Integrative Medicine, and clinical professor of family medicine, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

Joseph Friedman, former owner PDI Medical cannabis dispensary, and scientific advisory board, Acannability

David Gray, licensed clinical professional counselor and doctoral candidate in counseling education and supervision, Adler University

Summer is deadliest season for homeless population

While many of us associate summer with patio brunches and weekend street festivals, for people experiencing homelessness, summer brings something else entirely — danger.

Across the country, the number of people experiencing homelessness tends to rise during the summer. Children are home from school. Families doubling or tripling up feel increasingly squeezed. For people without shelter, it’s even worse. Summer months are often the hardest time to find a bed, as demand for shelter stays high.

Then there’s the heat.

The record-breaking temperatures we’ve felt in recent weeks have been uncomfortable for most of us. But for others, they can be fatal. Chicago knows this firsthand. It was just 30 years ago that a relentless heat wave overwhelmed our emergency systems and took the lives of more than 700 Chicagoans.

People experiencing homelessness are 200 times more likely to die from heat-related causes than sheltered individuals.

That’s why I launched Hope for Homes Day in the middle of July. This is a campaign to unite nonprofit housing providers and raise awareness about homelessness.

While most fundraising campaigns are timed for the fall and winter holidays, I saw a need to shine a light on this issue during a season when the urgency is just as real, but far less visible. On July 17, 35 nonprofit organizations across Illinois joined together to raise awareness and funding for our work supporting individuals and families facing housing insecurity. It was a bold, collective action that raised over $215,000 by over 900 donors.

We’ve come a long way since 1995. Cities now open cooling centers and extend library and community center hours during heat waves. At La Casa Norte, we operate two drop-in centers for youth ages 16 to 24 that are open year-round — but it’s during the summer that we see the highest number of visitors.

But the truth is, no amount of cooling centers can replace the stability of permanent housing. Until we commit to addressing the root causes of homelessness, like lack of affordable housing, systemic poverty, racial inequity and underfunded safety nets, we will continue to fall short in our response.

That’s why summer is not the time to look away.

If you’ve ever wondered how to make a difference, start now. Support the organizations doing the work. Advocate for long-term solutions. Let’s make sure that next summer, fewer of our neighbors are forced to survive it without a place to call home.

Keelie Johnson, vice president, development, La Casa Norte

Helping starved Palestinians in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu states, "There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza."

However, Israel did not allow any humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip for 77 days, from March 2 until May 18. This was after Israel devastated Gaza's fields, orchards, greenhouses and water infrastructure.

Over 100 humanitarian organizations recently declared that Gaza faces mass starvation and have called on governments worldwide to end Israel's restrictions on lifesaving aid.

Nations with ports on the Mediterranean Sea should immediately send their navies to escort sufficient humanitarian aid and break the siege. The international community must act because Israel and the U.S. have failed to end Gaza’s starvation crisis.

Terry Hansen, Milwaukee

Guardianship prep for vulnerable families

In recent months, family separations have been in the news. Is it possible for parents to write out backup plans for the care of their kids?

Yes. Illinois law provides for short-term guardianships. Parents may, in writing, appoint a trusted person to help their children in case of a family separation or other emergency. The individual so named — the guardian — then takes over management of the living arrangements, health care and schooling of the children.

Usually, a short term guardianship lasts for up to 365 days. Court involvement is not required.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has posted a state-suggested form. Download it online using the search term CFS 444-2. For a Spanish language version, go to CFS 444-2 Espanol.

Scott K. Summers, Harvard

Protecting Illinoisans from toxic exposure

As the Trump administration continues to recklessly dismantle consumer, environmental and public health protections at the federal level, it is critical that our state step up to assure that Illinois families are safe from corporate malfeasance.

That’s why Senate Bill 328, now on the governor’s desk, needs to become law. The measure would allow any Illinois-registered company that sells toxic and other hazardous products that injure consumers to be held accountable through the Illinois legal system. If a child or senior citizen is harmed by one of their dangerous products in any state, then Illinois citizens need to be protected from such exposure.

It is not a surprise that the business lobbyists are opposing such strengthened protections, as they relayed in a recent Sun-Times Letter to the Editor. Many of their biggest backers gave millions earlier this year to Donald Trump, whose appointees are systematically destroying the federal safeguards that protect us from unsafe drugs, faulty consumer products and poisons in our air and water.

As they acknowledge, SB 328 would put Illinois at the forefront of states enacting such tougher legal protections. The governor faces an important choice: Protect Illinois families or expose them to further danger from unsafe products.

Julia Warheit, Lincoln Park

Trump’s fairy tales won’t fix economic woes

Just hours after the dismal July jobs numbers were released recently, Donald Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the entity which produces the data. In addition to the abysmal July numbers, May and June’s numbers were revised downward by a combined 258,000 jobs. Instead of these revisions setting off alarm bells that the economy may be in crisis, Trump instead shoots the messenger. Is that something he learned at the Wharton School of Finance?

Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer, who has a doctorate in economics, is the equivalent of a physician who ignores inconvenient lab results. Both are attempts to silence or discard factual information, because it doesn’t fit the story someone wants to tell, even if that means putting people’s well-being at risk. The nations vital signs are screaming out for attention, but instead they are being ignored by the president. By the time he and the Republican Party figure it out, if ever, our country’s economy may not be able to be resuscitated.

Tom Scorby, St. Charles 

Will ICE agents visit Trump’s properties?

I'm still waiting for Kristi Noem and her Gestapo-style U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to invade Donald Trump's resorts, golf courses, Mar-a-Lago and his other businesses to look for undocumented immigrants and arrest them. I'm sure they could find some “worst of the worst” criminals hired by Trump to take care of his properties since it seems they're all "criminals." ICE agents seem to find them everywhere else, why not on Trump's properties? Since the system in place does not vet anyone, the innocent are getting jailed and the valuable undocumented laborers are still working for the billionaires.

Thomas Bajorek, Burbank

Air care

The air is now routinely polluted by wildfire smoke to the point that Chicago was recently ranked No. 1 in the world for worst air quality. This is outrageous. As the Sun-Times points out, these are "climate-driven fires," which means they are the responsibility, largely, of the fossil fuel companies, which have lied and obfuscated around climate change for decades, sowing doubt where there shouldn't have been any. In a just world, these companies would be liable, in the least, for the suffering of our vulnerable — people who cannot easily go outside when the air itself is an enemy to their respiratory systems.

The impact on our lives is immeasurable, and yet, in this same moment, the Trump administration is defanging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. I hope we have learned from the pandemic that at our most vulnerable, we must rely on solidarity with each other, and that this solidarity is what makes us powerful against a deadly greed that would mindlessly toxify the very air we breathe.

Beau Golwitzer, Edgewater

Remembering fallen CPD officer

Being a cop and a first responder is like being in purgatory. It’s not heaven, nor is it hell, but it is a bit of each every single day. You witness people's inhumanity and get to save lives and bring smiles and relief to many others. It takes a toll on one’s soul. Chicago Police Officer Ella French, who was killed during a traffic stop on Aug, 7, 2021, endured it all and never stopped smiling. RIP. Pro Deo et Patria.

Bob Angone, retired Chicago police lieutenant, Austin, Texas

Texas Dems right at home in Illinois

What better place for Texas Democrats to visit than the great city of Chicago, the gerrymandering capital of the country, rivaled only by California? Also known for its great theatrical productions, Chi-town is the perfect stage for the drama-loving thespians.

Sherry Szilage Stoffel, North Aurora