DuPage County, IL Cannabis Regulations: Buffer Zones (2026)

2 sets separate distance standards for the two types of state-licensed medical cannabis facilities the County allows. A medical cannabis cultivation center must be located at least 2,500 feet from the property line of a pre-existing public or private preschool or elementary or secondary school, day care center, day care home, group day care home, part day child care facility, and an area zoned for residential use. A medical cannabis dispensary carries a shorter 1,000-foot buffer from the same list of protected uses. Both use types must independently comply with the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act, Public Act 098-0122, and any state rules adopted under it; the County ordinance layers its own zoning buffer on top of, not instead of, that state licensing framework.

Distances are measured by following a straight line, without regard to intervening structures, from a point on the property or the land use district boundary line from which the proposed use is to be separated, so the buffer runs point to point regardless of roads, buildings, or terrain between the sites. The declaration of policy preceding the distance table, adopted in Ordinance T-1-14 in 2014, frames the buffers as a tool to prevent concentration of these uses near residential neighborhoods and protected child-care and school uses, while stating the County does not intend to deny registered patients access to medical cannabis.

Recreational, adult-use cannabis cultivation, processing, and dispensing organizations are governed separately under Chapter 38 and are prohibited outright in unincorporated DuPage County, so these distance rules apply only to the medical program.