The Illinois medical cannabis program is off to a slow start. Many of the operators aren’t yet open, and the registered patients, numbering less than 5000, are less than expected. Governor Bruce Rauner recently overruled advisors and refused to add additional qualifying conditions like PTSD and autism. A big challenge, though, is that many doctors are not willing to provide patients with referrals. One who has just recently begun to do so is Dr. Rahul Khare of Innovative Express Care in Chicago.
The patients seeking medical marijuana inquire almost daily with Dr. Rahul Khare at his storefront health care clinic in Lincoln Park.
They come with cancer, spinal cord diseases, rheumatoid arthritis. Some have been turned down for a cannabis referral by the doctors they see regularly, not because they might not qualify, Khare contends, but because many physicians are hesitant to refer anyone for marijuana.
Khare, a former associate professor at Northwestern University, received federal grants of over $700K to evaluate how to improve healthcare, studies that led him to launch his business.
Read Robert McCoppin’s “Is risk of state discipline scaring doctors away from medical marijuana?” : http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/ct-illinois-medical-marijuana-doctor-oversight-met-20160209-story.html
