Last week, public health officials released draft rules for the program that would require patients to provide the state with fingerprints, un-dergo a background check, pay $150 annually for a special photo ID and surrender their FOID cards.

But the continued federal prohibition of marijuana has created issues for vendors in states where it’s legal. Feder-ally-insured banks could face serious consequences from the Justice Department for violating federal statutes that prohibit drug trafficking and money laundering.

“So the idea is that banks are required to report suspicious activity, and that includes banking activity,” said West. “There’s nothing that clarifies that (the rule’s) not intended for legal businesses.”

State Sen. Jason Barickman, R-Bloomington, said the prob-lem illustrates why he opposed legalization when it was first proposed.

“It’s as if the majority who supported this bill shrugged off the fact that this is prohibited by federal law,” he said. “What’s most concerning to me is that we would appear to be enacting an entire bureauc-racy in our state for one drug and in doing so, we’re ignoring all of the implications that this would have on a federal level.”

State Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, isn’t sold on that ar-gument.