Illinois’ First Medical Marijuana Patient Advocacy Center
SERVED AND CERTIFIED 10,000+ PATIENTS ACROSS THE HEALING CLINICS
CHICAGO • HIGHLAND PARK • FLOSSMOOR
OUR FOUNDER
OUR JOURNEY
OUR LEGACY
Pioneering Illinois’ Cannabis Industry Since 2014
Founded by Feliza Castro in Chicago in 2014, The Healing Clinic helped fulfill the original promise of Illinois’ medical cannabis program: to ease the pain and suffering of patients living with serious and debilitating conditions. As the organization grew, Castro built and led a team of compassionate physicians and patient advocates who listened to, and cared deeply for, the people they served. The Healing Clinic provided certification, education, advocacy and guidance that helped thousands of qualifying patients across Illinois navigate a new and complex law — offering a safe path toward relief and an improved quality of life.
“I watched patients get turned away
by a system that didn’t take their pain seriously.
I refused to accept that as the standard, so I built The Healing Clinic to fight for them.
Nobody handed me a roadmap for Illinois’ cannabis industry. I created one and led the way.”
Feliza Castro
Founder, The Healing Clinic
Building the Patient Base That Built an Industry
A dispensary license could open a storefront, but it took registered patients to create a market. Feliza Castro and The Healing Clinic built that patient base in Illinois.
As a young, single, Latina mother, Castro financed The Healing Clinic entirely herself and retained full ownership and control of the brand to this day. She established three staffed clinics in Chicago (2014), Highland Park (2015) and Flossmoor (2016), contracted with physicians, and assembled a team of patient advocates. Together, they guided more than 10,000 patients through the process of obtaining their Illinois medical cannabis cards over a decade of operation.
That work carried a direct economic impact. Education, physician coordination, and application support bridged the gap between the promise of a new industry and an actual community of customers. Every single patient who completed the registration process became a vital participant in the legal market.
Castro’s team actively connected patients with pioneering dispensaries, including Greenhouse, Windy City Cannabis, Zen Leaf, GTI’s Mundelein location and The Herbal Care Center. These relationships supplied the critical customer base on which dispensary sales and growth depended. Furthermore, The Healing Clinic’s patient community fueled the early market demand for Grassroots Cannabis and Ataraxia products, giving those brands a foundational foothold before the industry matured. Feliza Castro invested her own resources into opening access for patients, creating immense value for dispensaries and cultivation centers far beyond her clinic doors.
Many of these early partners later expanded into, or were acquired by, GTI, Curaleaf, and Verano—now three of the largest publicly traded cannabis companies in the United States. Their early growth in Illinois was built directly on the patient base The Healing Clinic created, a monumental contribution that has largely gone unacknowledged as those corporations scaled into national empires.
An honest history of Illinois cannabis must account for who built that foundation. Alongside the narratives of corporate licenses, mega-mergers, and capital expansion belongs the story of an independently funded woman and her team doing the relentless, daily work that made the market viable.
This archive preserves that contribution, and insists on its rightful place in the record and history.
Advocacy in Action
Feliza Castro and The Healing Clinic advancing medical cannabis education, access, and patient advocacy across Illinois.
Ahead of the Industry
On October 1, 2014, just one day after Illinois began accepting medical cannabis patient applications—Feliza Castro and The Healing Clinic began certifying patients for the state’s Medical Cannabis Pilot Program.
Before dispensaries opened, before cultivators had product available, and before a functioning legal marketplace existed in Illinois, Feliza assembled and led a team of patient advocates and physicians dedicated to making a complex new program accessible to the people who needed it most.
Our advocates educated prospective patients, helped families navigate the newly implemented regulations, coordinated access to knowledgeable physicians, and built a community of thousands. It all started in Chicago, where The Healing Clinic first opened its doors. While cultivators and dispensaries were still preparing to enter the market, our team was already building the patient base that would make the emerging industry possible.
Before there was an industry standard, there was Feliza. The Healing Clinic didn’t follow an existing market—we were central to shaping it.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Reflections from patients served by The Healing Clinic.