Could Marijuana Be Legal in Illinois?

"I'm hoping they never do this again to anyone. Because if someone else was as sick as I was, and has been through what I've been through, they might not have been able to live through it. I knew inside of me that for the sake of my health, I had a right to do what I did."

-- Brenda Kratovil, on her arrest for marijuana possession

I am sitting across the kitchen table from Brenda Kratovil in her Beach Park home just a few miles north of Waukegan. It's early in the afternoon and Kratovil and her husband have just returned from the nearby Lake County Courthouse. There, in a preliminary hearing, a judge has just ruled that she could not introduce medical necessity into her defense on charges of marijuana possession.

When we meet for the first time after the hearing, Kratovil is quiet. I'm not sure if she is more upset and angry or just sad. I imagine perhaps all these emotions are with her. But now, back at her home as she begins to tell me her story, I also understand that I am speaking with a woman whose spirit remains strong, despite her current legal difficulties. I suspect Brenda's many health challenges have steeled her to life's harder edges.

Brenda Kratovil tells me she has had glaucoma for over 20 years. Legally blind, she was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) 15 years ago, and has been on disability since the age of 18. What now has the Beach Park mother of two in so much trouble is the fact that she uses marijuana to relieve her symptoms. Kratovil, who hopes to eventually be able to legally use medical marijuana -- under a little-known Illinois statute -- first got the idea of trying the drug to relieve her eye pain from a specialist she saw in Arizona shortly after she was diagnosed. The physician couldn't prescribe marijuana but suggested the drug might lower the intra-ocular pressure that was causing her so much discomfort.

He was right. When she smoked marijuana, Kratovil had less pain. Her vision also improved. The plant may also have provided some relief for her. Ms. Kratovil has used marijuana since to manage her symptoms.

None of this mattered much on Sept. 4, 2001, however. That's the day the Metropolitan Enforcement Group (MEG) of Lake County, a police task force, raided the home Kratovil shares with her husband and two teenage children. Apparently, a neighbor had seen some small marijuana plants growing in the back yard and called police. For several hours, police ransacked the family's residence in a search for more drugs or information on local dealers.

Notably, police did not arrest Kratovil at the time. That happened about three months later, when they returned and, in front of family and neighbors, Kratovil was handcuffed and taken to jail. But her ordeal was not quite over yet. Six months after the first raid, the MEG crew returned and, with their guns and dogs, embarked on one more intrusive romp through the family's home.

It was, not surprisingly, a highly traumatic experience. Both searches left the house in complete disarray, says Kratovil, with beds turned upside down, drawers emptied onto the floor, and the children's things scattered helter skelter. According to Kratovil's lawyer, David Stepanich of Vernon Hills, $300 in cash was also taken from the home, forfeited as alleged "drug money." The first search was also conducted without a warrant after police warned Kratovil that it would only get worse for her if they had to return later with the required warrant.

In the aftermath of the raids, the family has endured ostracism from neighbors and repeated visits from local police whenever minor incidents of vandalism or other crimes happen to occur in their area of town. The stress of it all has also taken a toll on Kratovil's health and for several months following the MEG raids she struggled with flare-ups of her symptoms. "When I watched my daughter crying with one of the officers telling her he could take me to jail and put her in Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), I felt so bad," says Kratovil, "I thought, this isn't fair."