Schaumburg family launches campaign to retain access to daughter’s medical marijuana
A Schaumburg family whose daughter inspired Illinois’ Ashley’s Law in 2018 has launched a Change.org campaign to create a legal path for her to receive medical marijuana patches that have kept her seizure-free for eight years from another state since they’re no longer available in Illinois.
Maureen Surin, mother of the now 19-year-old Ashley, said the executive order President Donald Trump signed last week reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug is only one step toward the change needed before her daughter’s supply of patches runs out in mid-January.
“It is exciting that President Trump signed that EO loosening restrictions and opening doors to research,” Maureen said. “However, it does not give us what we need right now. His EO will take time to actually be written into a formal law.”
Ashley’s Law allowed Ashley to receive the particular patches created by Mary’s Medicinals of Colorado and manufactured locally under a license by Green Thumb Industries (GTI) of Chicago while she was in school.
Diagnosed with leukemia at 2 years old, Ashley’s life was further complicated by epilepsy, autism and a concussion suffered during a fall from a seizure, even after she beat the cancer.
It took years to find a medication that prevented her seizures. But now that Mary’s Medicinals has withdrawn from the Illinois market, Missouri is the nearest place to buy the specific blend of marijuana and other ingredients she gets in the patches. But it is illegal to bring marijuana across state lines.
The family launched the campaign Change.org/SaveAshley over the weekend to inspire lawmakers to revise current regulations. The effort has already collected nearly 200 signatures, but Maureen knows thousands will be needed to get enough attention.
“After eight years, there’s so much that should have been done,” she said. “I keep saying, ‘We live in the United States. Can’t we be united in how we address this problem?’ The laws need to keep up with reality, and the reality is patients need medicine. What is wrong with this picture?”
Maureen and her husband Jim believe experimenting with different products is a gamble. Due to obstacles in Ashley’s ability to express herself, she may not be able to communicate changes in the way other medications make her feel.
What Mary’s Medicinals has given her is the life of a productive young woman with a job and a variety of active interests, Maureen said.
Maureen will speak about her family’s plight in an interview with legal analyst Jill Wine-Banks from 3:30 to 4 p.m. Tuesday on the radio at WCPT AM 820 or at heartlandsignal.com/programs/live-local-progressive.
Mary’s Medicinals did not respond to a request for comment, and GTI declined comment.
Though a permanent change in the law is sought, Maureen believes authorization of an emergency transfer of Ashley’s medication may be the most realistic short-term option in the wake of Trump’s executive order. But she doesn’t want to break the law or ask anyone else to.
The family has reached out to both the Schaumburg office of U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and the Illinois Department of Public Health, Maureen said.
Neither office immediately responded to a request for comment Monday.
“We urge legislators and policymakers to address these challenges swiftly by making interstate commerce for cannabis legal,” Maureen wrote on the Change.org campaign. “Every day of inaction hinders patients relying on medical cannabis for their well-being.”