MedicalNeed
New Member
More than four distribution sites, no artificial THC caps, with medical marijuana in New Jersey.
No doubt, Gov. Chris Christie, his health and senior services commissioner and plenty of New Jersey residents don't want New Jersey's allowance of marijuana for specific medical uses to open the door to widespread, open recreational marijuana use in this state.
That is understandable. The bill our Legislature approved in January was not intended to transform New Jersey into California, where basically anyone who wants marijuana can easily get it.
So we know why the governor's Department of Health and Senior Services has put forward regulations for legalized medical marijuana use in the Garden State that are rigid. Better to err on the side of caution and not open the door to exploitation by recreational users, is the thinking.
While that logic is sound, the governor, Health Department Commissioner Poonam Alaigh and other officials still need to adjust their proposed regulations. As they're written, the rules are so limiting that they will lead many New Jerseyans who should be able to obtain marijuana legally to treat their debilitating pain to continue buying it illegally.
Here's what's wrong with the proposed regulations:
Two growers and four distribution sites is simply not enough. In New Jersey, patients who use marijuana to relieve severe pain, nausea and other symptoms from their illnesses, won't be allowed to grow their own marijuana for use. All 13 other states with legalized medical marijuana allow patients to grow their own marijuana in different amounts.
If New Jersey isn't going to allow home growing of the plant, there must be more than two registered growers. And there will certainly need to be more than four "alternative treatment centers" where patients can get marijuana. If a cancer patient who relies on marijuana to relieve his chronic nausea lives in, say, Vineland, but the closest alternative treatment center where he could purchase medical marijuana is in Camden, that is decidedly inconvenient.
The dispensaries would be able to open satellite offices and to provide home delivery to patients, but how much will that cost and will these nonprofit alternative treatment centers -- already being asked to pay a $20,000 fee to the state -- be able to afford these added services?
Here's a suggestion for the health department: How about the state contracts with private pharmacies to handle distribution -- if they want the business. What businesses better know how to keep prescription medicines secure and are accustomed to dealing with doctors and prescriptions than pharmacies?
Whatever the solution, there are 21 counties in New Jersey and there ought to be at least that many distribution sites around the state.
Limiting the percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in medical marijuana to less than 10 percent would, in effect, seem to be a regulation that serves no other purpose than to weaken the marijuana available and, as some patients who use marijuana have testified in Trenton, essentially reduce its effectiveness as a medicine that can blunt pain, take away nausea and clear up vision for glaucoma sufferers.
Essentially limiting the amount of marijuana (the part that counts) in the marijuana being legalized is nowhere in the legislation and is not what's done in other jurisdictions where medical marijuana has been made legal. It's an overreach by politicians trying to make a scientific decision based, at least in part, on political ideologies.
Do we want those suffering from AIDS, cancer, leukemia and other serious conditions to have to ingest greater quantities of marijuana more times a day because Trenton will only allowed some sort of weakened version of the plant? No.
We understand the tight rules proposed regarding how doctors can prescribe marijuana and how it must go through the state. We even understand charging patients who would use the drug and the alternative treatment centers a fee -- money that will fund all the new state oversight.
New Jersey is trying to put in place a system that will be exceedingly difficult for those who just want to obtain marijuana for recreational use to abuse. That's smart.
But, these proposed rules have sparked an outpouring of criticism from all sides in this discussion -- much of it justifiable criticism.
What good is it to legalize marijuana for those 7,000-plus estimated New Jerseyans who depend on it as a medicine if the program's rules are so suffocating as to make legal medical marijuana altogether inconvenient and unfulfilling. They'll just keep growing marijuana illegally themselves or buying it from drug dealers. What a symbolic-yet-useless piece of legislation we would have then.
NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: courierpostonline.com
Contact: courierpostonline.com | Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties Newsroom Staff | Courier-Post
Copyright:2010 CourierPostOnline.com/Courier-Post
Website:Medical marijuana rules need adjusting | courierpostonline.com | Courier-Post
No doubt, Gov. Chris Christie, his health and senior services commissioner and plenty of New Jersey residents don't want New Jersey's allowance of marijuana for specific medical uses to open the door to widespread, open recreational marijuana use in this state.
That is understandable. The bill our Legislature approved in January was not intended to transform New Jersey into California, where basically anyone who wants marijuana can easily get it.
So we know why the governor's Department of Health and Senior Services has put forward regulations for legalized medical marijuana use in the Garden State that are rigid. Better to err on the side of caution and not open the door to exploitation by recreational users, is the thinking.
While that logic is sound, the governor, Health Department Commissioner Poonam Alaigh and other officials still need to adjust their proposed regulations. As they're written, the rules are so limiting that they will lead many New Jerseyans who should be able to obtain marijuana legally to treat their debilitating pain to continue buying it illegally.
Here's what's wrong with the proposed regulations:
Two growers and four distribution sites is simply not enough. In New Jersey, patients who use marijuana to relieve severe pain, nausea and other symptoms from their illnesses, won't be allowed to grow their own marijuana for use. All 13 other states with legalized medical marijuana allow patients to grow their own marijuana in different amounts.
If New Jersey isn't going to allow home growing of the plant, there must be more than two registered growers. And there will certainly need to be more than four "alternative treatment centers" where patients can get marijuana. If a cancer patient who relies on marijuana to relieve his chronic nausea lives in, say, Vineland, but the closest alternative treatment center where he could purchase medical marijuana is in Camden, that is decidedly inconvenient.
The dispensaries would be able to open satellite offices and to provide home delivery to patients, but how much will that cost and will these nonprofit alternative treatment centers -- already being asked to pay a $20,000 fee to the state -- be able to afford these added services?
Here's a suggestion for the health department: How about the state contracts with private pharmacies to handle distribution -- if they want the business. What businesses better know how to keep prescription medicines secure and are accustomed to dealing with doctors and prescriptions than pharmacies?
Whatever the solution, there are 21 counties in New Jersey and there ought to be at least that many distribution sites around the state.
Limiting the percentage of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in medical marijuana to less than 10 percent would, in effect, seem to be a regulation that serves no other purpose than to weaken the marijuana available and, as some patients who use marijuana have testified in Trenton, essentially reduce its effectiveness as a medicine that can blunt pain, take away nausea and clear up vision for glaucoma sufferers.
Essentially limiting the amount of marijuana (the part that counts) in the marijuana being legalized is nowhere in the legislation and is not what's done in other jurisdictions where medical marijuana has been made legal. It's an overreach by politicians trying to make a scientific decision based, at least in part, on political ideologies.
Do we want those suffering from AIDS, cancer, leukemia and other serious conditions to have to ingest greater quantities of marijuana more times a day because Trenton will only allowed some sort of weakened version of the plant? No.
We understand the tight rules proposed regarding how doctors can prescribe marijuana and how it must go through the state. We even understand charging patients who would use the drug and the alternative treatment centers a fee -- money that will fund all the new state oversight.
New Jersey is trying to put in place a system that will be exceedingly difficult for those who just want to obtain marijuana for recreational use to abuse. That's smart.
But, these proposed rules have sparked an outpouring of criticism from all sides in this discussion -- much of it justifiable criticism.
What good is it to legalize marijuana for those 7,000-plus estimated New Jerseyans who depend on it as a medicine if the program's rules are so suffocating as to make legal medical marijuana altogether inconvenient and unfulfilling. They'll just keep growing marijuana illegally themselves or buying it from drug dealers. What a symbolic-yet-useless piece of legislation we would have then.
NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: courierpostonline.com
Contact: courierpostonline.com | Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties Newsroom Staff | Courier-Post
Copyright:2010 CourierPostOnline.com/Courier-Post
Website:Medical marijuana rules need adjusting | courierpostonline.com | Courier-Post
