After losing her job as a dispatcher for buying her cancer-ridden aunt marijuana, Laura Llanes says she would do it again.
She was stunned, nevertheless, when she was fired from CenCom E-9-11 last week after admitting she bought the pot to help relieve her aunt's suffering through breast cancer and chemotherapy.
Marijuana for medicinal purposes is legal with a prescription in 13 states; Illinois is not one of them.
Llanes, 28, of Lake Villa, remains adamant that she did the right thing, saying her biggest mistake was telling a few co-workers what she had done.
"They ratted me out," she said.
Her aunt, who lives in Aurora, was "sick constantly, not eating, not having an appetite. She is diabetic. She has to eat. She was whittling away to nothing," said Llanes.
"I thought, 'I will get her some marijuana so it would get her to eat,'" she said. "It worked. She did get the munchies."
Llanes has not been charged with a crime, but when confronted by her supervisor, she admitted she had bought pot and was promptly fired Wednesday.
"All that mattered was that I admitted to committing an illegal act," she said.
A bill introduced in the Illinois legislature calls for allowing the medicinal use of marijuana in a three-year test program.
Critics oppose the legislation because of concerns about potential abuse and enforcement.
