STOP BLOWING smoke. It's time to inhale.
Cancer patients, people with AIDS, victims of Lou Gehrig's disease and others have waited long enough. They were supposed to be allowed to smoke medical marijuana starting in October. Thirteen other states already allow it, and New Jersey became the 14th back in January, when the Legislature passed the nation's strictest law and then-Gov. Jon Corzine signed it.
But then Governor Christie pushed back the start date to January 2011, in a move befitting a prosecutor, because he wanted "to do it the right way," his spokesman said.
The right way meant Rutgers University should oversee growing it and 16 teaching hospitals should sell it, to tightly control the process. But Rutgers officials said last week that the school could not risk losing more than $500 million in federal funding to grow medical marijuana. The university was not convinced that its new career as a marijuana farmer would be liability-free.
The university-hospital axis might have looked like a good plan on paper, but it was not a good plan in reality. The University of Mississippi is the only state school approved by the federal government to grow marijuana, and the crops are produced solely for research. It is a federal crime to possess, sell, smoke or eat marijuana. Unless a university gets an ironclad promise the feds will overlook its illegal activities, it takes a huge risk sanctioning them.
Why the state had to go down this road is a mystery. New Jersey's medical marijuana law already has provisions for establishing non-profit alternative treatment centers throughout the state to grow and provide medicinal marijuana. Unlike Rutgers, these centers are not in danger of losing federal funding. And other states have made similar arrangements.
In response to Rutgers' decision last week, Christie's spokesman said, "... as we've said all along, we've been considering other options beyond the Rutgers plan."
Stop. The option is right here, in the law. New Jersey has wasted too much time already. It must not ask for yet another extension, and it must not flop around looking for alternatives. Lack of a concrete plan at this late date is torture to people desperate to ease their suffering, as is worrying that the law will be delayed.
These false starts are inhumane. The medical marijuana law was written to ease, not create, pain. Enact it as originally written.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: NorthJersey.com
Copyright: 2010 NorthJersey.com
Our Partners:2010 North Jersey Media Group
Cancer patients, people with AIDS, victims of Lou Gehrig's disease and others have waited long enough. They were supposed to be allowed to smoke medical marijuana starting in October. Thirteen other states already allow it, and New Jersey became the 14th back in January, when the Legislature passed the nation's strictest law and then-Gov. Jon Corzine signed it.
But then Governor Christie pushed back the start date to January 2011, in a move befitting a prosecutor, because he wanted "to do it the right way," his spokesman said.
The right way meant Rutgers University should oversee growing it and 16 teaching hospitals should sell it, to tightly control the process. But Rutgers officials said last week that the school could not risk losing more than $500 million in federal funding to grow medical marijuana. The university was not convinced that its new career as a marijuana farmer would be liability-free.
The university-hospital axis might have looked like a good plan on paper, but it was not a good plan in reality. The University of Mississippi is the only state school approved by the federal government to grow marijuana, and the crops are produced solely for research. It is a federal crime to possess, sell, smoke or eat marijuana. Unless a university gets an ironclad promise the feds will overlook its illegal activities, it takes a huge risk sanctioning them.
Why the state had to go down this road is a mystery. New Jersey's medical marijuana law already has provisions for establishing non-profit alternative treatment centers throughout the state to grow and provide medicinal marijuana. Unlike Rutgers, these centers are not in danger of losing federal funding. And other states have made similar arrangements.
In response to Rutgers' decision last week, Christie's spokesman said, "... as we've said all along, we've been considering other options beyond the Rutgers plan."
Stop. The option is right here, in the law. New Jersey has wasted too much time already. It must not ask for yet another extension, and it must not flop around looking for alternatives. Lack of a concrete plan at this late date is torture to people desperate to ease their suffering, as is worrying that the law will be delayed.
These false starts are inhumane. The medical marijuana law was written to ease, not create, pain. Enact it as originally written.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: NorthJersey.com
Copyright: 2010 NorthJersey.com
Our Partners:2010 North Jersey Media Group
