Kankakee County, IL Public Conduct: Public Marijuana Use (2026)

Sec. 42-9, adopted in 2017, borrows its definitions from the state Cannabis Control Act but narrows the term "person" to natural persons age 17 or older. Under subsection (b), a person commits the county offense of possession of cannabis by knowingly possessing ten grams or less of any substance containing cannabis, unless permitted or authorized under the Cannabis Control Act, within Kankakee County's unincorporated areas or within areas where the Kankakee County Sheriff's Office has primary local police enforcement under an intergovernmental agreement approved by the county board.

00 for any violation of subsection (b); the ordinance does not authorize jail time and does not distinguish between possession in a public place and possession on private property, so it reaches any qualifying possession the sheriff's office encounters in its patrol area. The same chapter separately outlaws drug paraphernalia under Sec. 00 for delivering paraphernalia to a minor or advertising it for sale, and paraphernalia is subject to warrantless seizure and forfeiture to the county. Because the ordinance predates Illinois's later statewide cannabis legalization, county deputies apply Sec. 42-9 specifically within the unincorporated and intergovernmental-agreement patrol areas described in the ordinance.