‘Some actual relief’: Illinois veterans seek access to medical cannabis

Mike Guess, 32, of Belleville, is an Air Force veteran who suffers from severe pain caused by damaged back disks and fibromyalgia. Guess was able to obtain an Illinois medical marijuana card, which will enable him, he hopes, to quit taking the many different pills he takes daily that have been prescribed by the VA. Derik Holtmann

Friday afternoon marked a new beginning for Mike Guess of Belleville.

Guess, 32, an Air Force veteran, had guided his red Honda Civic into the parking lot of HCI Alternatives, the metro-east’s only medical cannabis dispensary that has opened so far. The married father of two checked his wallet to make sure he had the $200 in cash he had saved up, then walked as steadily as he could on pain-wracked legs to the dispensary’s front door.

HCI had opened for business on Monday, and four days later Guess had shown up to see if some of the strains of medical cannabis that HCI sells could help him. For nearly a decade, persistent migraine headaches and nerve pain from fibromyalgia and damaged spinal discs had plagued him day and night.

Before he walked inside, though, Guess removed a plastic bag from his car and began taking out plastic pill bottles. He set the bottles on the trunk of the Civic, lining up a dozen in all.

Some of the pills were muscle relaxers. Others treated his anxiety and depression. All were prescribed to him by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And each drug was chipping away at him, one pill at a time, he said. The trip to HCI was a last-ditch effort to get off the prescription drugs and find a natural alternative.