The state Senate on Thursday voted to ask on the November ballot whether recreational use of marijuana should be legalized and taxed in Illinois.

The ballot question would be only advisory, so even if voters approve, lawmakers still would have to act.

Sponsoring Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, said it is important to poll the public because some lawmakers are already working to legalize recreational marijuana use for people over 21. He noted that in most states that allow recreational use, it was done by voters expressing support in the ballot box.

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Illinois voters could get a say whether the state should legalize recreational marijuana if lawmakers decide to put the question on November ballots.

A state Senate committee advanced the idea on Wednesday, but a ballot question would be non-binding. That means it would work like a statewide public opinion poll and wouldn't legalize marijuana even if a majority of voters approve. Lawmakers who want to legalize the drug could get a political boost, though, if voters favor it.

State Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, said putting the matter to a vote would "bring the public into the debate" and "give them an opportunity to register their opinion" as lawmakers debate the idea in Springfield.

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On Wednesday, the Illinois Senate Executive Committee overwhelmingly passed SB336, a bill that would allow people with opioid prescriptions to apply for a medical marijuana card, with only Minority Leader Bill Brady, a Republican from Bloomington, voting no in a 16-1 decisive passing.

If signed into law, SB336 would amend the medical marijuana program to allow those who are prescribed opioids to apply for medical marijuana instead, giving patients the ability to choose medical cannabis, which has consistently shown to be a safer alternative, over the highly addictive and often deadly opioids.

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As the legal marijuana industry navigates uncertainty on the federal level, state attorneys general are asking Congress to pass a law allowing banks to work with cannabis companies.

Along with Illinois, 28 other states, Washington, D.C., and several U.S. territories have legalized medicinal cannabis, and eight states and the District of Columbia allow recreational use. But in the eyes of federal law, weed is still illegal, and the cash earned selling it is drug money.

Illinois' highly regulated medical cannabis industry, operating under a state pilot program, has been fighting to expand. Earlier this week, a judge ordered the state to add intractable pain -- pain that's resistant to treatment -- to the list of 41 conditions that qualify patients to use medical marijuana.

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CHICAGO -- The Latest on lawsuit to allow 11-year-old to receive marijuana treatment while at school.

The Illinois attorney general's office has told a federal court it will allow a suburban Chicago school district to administer medical marijuana to an 11-year-old leukemia patient to treat her for seizure disorders.

The commitment made to Judge John Blakey on Friday came two days after the student's parents sued Schaumburg-based District 54 and the state for the girl's right to take medical marijuana at school. Illinois' medical cannabis law prohibits possessing or using marijuana on school grounds or buses.

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In a case that could have far-reaching implications, parents of an elementary school student who has leukemia are suing a Schaumburg-based school district and the state of Illinois for the right for her to take medical marijuana at school.

Plaintiffs identified only as J.S. and M.S., parents of A.S., filed suit Wednesday claiming that the state's ban on taking the drug at school is unconstitutional because it denies the right to due process and violates the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

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An Oct. 28 letter to the Daily Herald advocated greater access to marijuana for people suffering chronic pain, citing a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). But if you visit the JAMA website and enter the search word "marijuana," you'll also see dozens of articles showing that marijuana can kill more than just pain: it can negatively impact things like cognitive function, moral clarity and the general health and well-being of users and their children and grandchildren.

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Johnsie Gooslin spent Jan. 16, 2015, tending his babies -- that's what he called his marijuana plants.

More than 70 of them were growing in a hydroponic system of his own design.

Sometimes, he'd stay in his barn for 16 hours straight, perfecting his technique.

That night, he left around 8 o'clock to head home. The moon was waning, down to a sliver, which left the sky as dark as the ridges that lined it. As he pulled away, the lights from his late-model Kia swept across his childhood hollow and his parents' trailer, which stood just up the road from the barn. He turned onto West Virginia Route 65. Crossing Mingo County, he passed the Delbarton Mine, where he had worked on and off for 14 years before his back gave out. Though Johnsie was built like a linebacker, falling once from a coal truck and twice from end loaders had taken a toll. At 36, his disks were a mess, and sciatica sometimes shot pain to his knees.

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Thirty people were shot, three fatally, during a violent 18-hour period from Saturday to Sunday in Chicago, which included a police-involved shooting and an attack outside Mount Sinai Hospital.

In the Lawndale neighborhood, a woman's voice echoed as she voiced her frustration at the scene of a double shooting that left a 31-year-old man dead and another man wounded.

"They know it's a drug house," she yelled out at the police and crowd that had gathered. "They don't give a (expletive). I do. I'm tired of this (expletive)."

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Chicago, I'm told, has a morality problem.

That's what White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the other day when asked if violence in our city is related to easy access to guns.

"I think that the problem there is pretty clear that it's a crime problem," she said. "I think crime is probably driven more by morality than anything else."

That's an interesting statement, given the reason the question was posed: The administration had just announced that 20 federal gun agents were being dispatched to Chicago to help with a task force focused on the flow of illegal guns into the city.

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Two Elgin men were arrested after police said they tried to sell pancake mix in a drug deal with undercover officers.

[Name redacted], 18, of the 600 block of Hampton Circle, was charged with four counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance, and one count of unlawful possession of a look-alike substance with intent to deliver, police said in a Facebook post Friday.

[Name redacted], 19, of the 300 block of Ann Street, was charged with one count each of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance and possession of a look-alike substance with intent to deliver, police said.

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[Name redacted], is charged with selling about a kilogram of heroin mixed with carfentanil -- the elephant tranquilizer -- and another potent opioid, fentanyl.

A grand jury has indicted a Cincinnati man on charges of selling an elephant tranquilizer in Chicago, the first time someone has been charged here with selling the drug -- which is used by narcotics dealers to boost the potency of heroin, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

[Name redacted] is accused of selling the mixture of drugs to the informant on Sept. 9 in a vehicle near 93rd and Stony Island on the South Side. An audio recording was made of the deal, authorities say. [Name redacted] allegedly offered to sell the informant a kilogram of the mixture for $65,000.

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I am writing to you in regard to the article "New pitch made for alcohol, drug treatment center near Campton Hills."

The opioid epidemic is a rather common in the U.S., but the opioid overdose statistics in Illinois have risen dramatically over a very short period of time, nearly 1,700 people in our state died from overdoses in 2014. This is a multifaceted problem, but our first step is destigmatization.

The recent opioid overdoses are directly related to an overall decrease of prescribing large amounts of pain killers. This crack down, which is absolutely necessary, causes people with narcotic addiction to seek it through heroin, rather than narcotic pain killers. Many reports all over the U.S. are pointing to heroin laced with fentanyl, a super potent narcotic, most likely from China, as the culprit to the heroin overdoses. This problem is not going away any time soon.

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[photo] Partygoers smoke marijuana during a Prohibition-era themed New Year's Eve party at a bar in Denver, celebrating the start of retail pot sales. Denver is starting work on becoming the first city in the nation to allow marijuana clubs and public pot use in places like restaurants, yoga studios and art galleries. Voters narrowly approved the "social use" measure last November. (Brennan Linsley / AP)

Denver has started work on the nation's first law allowing marijuana clubs and use in public places such as coffee shops or art galleries. But the details about what those pot clubs would look like are very much in the air. Here's what we know, and don't know, about the looming pot clubs headed to Denver:

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Depressed, withdrawn and coping with a death in the family, Joseph thought getting high would help him feel better.

Instead, he said, his marijuana smoking grew into a daily habit that made him paranoid and constantly question how others saw him. He went days without going home, showering or eating much besides potato chips.

"I always thought (marijuana) would bring down my anxiety, but it just made it that much worse," the Rockford-area man said.

One day, after getting so high that he was pacing around, alarmed by his own gaunt appearance and generally "freaking out," Joseph was taken by his brother to a Rosecrance drug treatment center in Rockford, where he entered an inpatient program.

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[photo] A medical marijuana dispensary is proposed for 1154 N. Main St. in Algonquin.

Algonquin officials are considering a medical marijuana company's proposal to open a dispensary in a medical office complex.

ILDISP III LLC, represented by Ross Morreale, is seeking a special-use permit for a free-standing building at 1154 N. Main St., out of which the company would sell marijuana to patients with a prescription.

An attached garage would also be added onto the building, which formerly housed an MRI center, as a secure area for deliveries and waste removal, according to the proposal.

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- -- and says he's done it before

In his latest controversial statement, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his bloody anti-drug war that has killed thousands, threatened to throw corrupt officials out of a helicopter, saying he has done it before, to a kidnapper, and won't hesitate to do it again.

"I will pick you up in a helicopter to Manila, and I will throw you out on the way," Duterte said in Tagalog in front of a crowd in the Camarines Sur province Tuesday, according to GMA News. "I've done it before. Why would I not do it again?"

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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs

Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs faces criticism for its brutal efforts that have left more than 3,000 drug users and dealers dead.

Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs faces criticism for its brutal efforts that have left more than 3,000 drug users and dealers dead.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte affirmed on Friday that he shot dead three people as mayor, dismissing any uncertainty and displaying no remorse.

"I don't really know how many bullets from my gun went inside their bodies," he said. "It happened. I cannot lie about it."

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With fewer than 4,000 approved patients, the nascent medical marijuana business in Illinois is off to a slow start. Yet it hasn't kept away a cadre of cannabis entrepreneurs who once relied on guns, badges, tough drug laws and lengthy prison sentences to fight the drug.

While neither state regulators nor the medical marijuana industry track the number of employees who were former law enforcement officials, The Associated Press has identified no fewer than 17 in Illinois, many of whom have outsized influence -- from a trustee of the state's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police to one-time undercover narcotics officers.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a western Kansas woman against the state and several agencies after her son was removed from her home in 2015 when he told school officials she used marijuana.

Shona Banda, of Garden City, alleged in the lawsuit filed in March that the defendants denied her civil rights by refusing to allow her to use medical marijuana to treat her Crohn's disease, interfered with her parenting and questioned her son without her permission. Medical marijuana is not legal in Kansas.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten dismissed the lawsuit Tuesday, agreeing with the defendants' contention that Banda had no right to use marijuana and the agencies had some immunity.

Banda says she intends to pursue the case after she recovers from a recent surgery.

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