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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,538
New Jersey bureaucrats bungling medical marijuana law
    #13319912 - 10/11/10 09:36 AM (13 years, 7 months ago)

New Jersey bureaucrats bungling medical marijuana law
October 11, 2010 - thedailyjournal.com
By Bob Ingle

It's time we leave medical decisions up to medical personnel, since there is nothing in their makeup that equips bureaucrats to understand the needs of people in distress.

New Jersey released proposed regulations for medical marijuana use and the emphasis is not on helping the chronically and terminally ill. Certainly, we don't want a law meant to help the needy used as a way to get pot for fun, but adjustments have to be made.

Sen. Nick Scutari, D-Union, shares the concern. He sponsored the legislation and has a problem with changes made after his bill was signed into law. "I don't want them rewriting my law," he told a reporter. "That's not right."

The state Health Department was supposed to issue up to six dispensaries to grow and sell medical marijuana with sites in northern, central and southern parts of the state. Instead, the state will license two growers who will supply four dispensaries.

That raises a lot of questions. Can two growers meet the demand? And how far will people have to go to get help? When you're sick enough to need medical pot, it's not like you feel like running around the state.

The administration also has moved the start-up date to July 1, 2011.

"It might not be a viable business model," said Roseanne Scott, the New Jersey director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

"You've limited the number of people who can get medical marijuana, you've limited the amount they can get. It will be interesting to see if anybody actually applies and thinks they can run one of these things."

The AP looked at the proposed rules and interviewed advocates who said they are more strict than regulations used in 13 other states that allow medical marijuana. For instance, patients would have to pay $200 every two years for a card giving them the right to buy it. That money and the $20,000 annual fee for the treatment centers would pay for state oversight.

Patients could only get marijuana prescriptions from doctors with whom they have an ongoing relationship or who take responsibility for their conditions.

Let's say we have a middle-aged man who hates going to the doctor, which seems to affect a lot of men. He finally gives in and gets a diagnosis of cancer and is scheduled for chemo and radiation. Is that an ongoing relationship?

Chris Goldstein with the Medical Marijuana in New Jersey organization said, "I can say these regulations reflect far more politics than they do science."

There are those who think the politics behind this is to make it so inconvenient that patients will stay with prescription drugs, which are a big business in this state. In fact, Gov. Chris Christie's chief of staff came from drug giant Pfizer.

I've heard all the arguments about high-priced prescription drugs being just as effective, and I'm here to tell you it is low-grade horse manure. Twice in my life circumstances resulted in my being responsible for two dear friends with terminal illness.

I have watched enough suffering to last me to the end of time. I have seen the anti-nausea drugs get vomited up. I have heard people cry out for me to do something, anything, in the middle of the night because the pain pills stopped working. Have you watched people you love waste away because they just have no appetite? You don't want to.

If patients are discouraged from getting medical marijuana the legal way, they can continue to get it the old-fashioned illegal way, thus supporting unsavory characters and putting people at risk.

This proposed system is too complex and too unsympathetic to people who need help. There is a six-month period to evaluate and change it. That's way too long and an unnecessary delay proposed by people who are healthy, obviously.

If the administration can't be sympathetic and understand we're talking about real suffering people, not numbers on paper, then the Legislature should step in and tell the bureaucracy to go to hell.

Bob Ingle is senior political columnist for New Jersey Press Media.

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InvisibleDutchie3k
Psychic Drifter
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Registered: 12/16/08
Posts: 348
Loc: this hazy bubble, state o...
Re: New Jersey bureaucrats bungling medical marijuana law [Re: veggie]
    #13320394 - 10/11/10 11:56 AM (13 years, 7 months ago)

Not in the least bit suprising that they tried (and sadly succeeded) in potentially cutting the legs off of this sensible legislation...


--------------------
"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.  The others - the living - are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later"

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