Senate Panel to Reform NJ’s Subpar Medical Marijuana Program
Up for debate Monday in Trenton: several bills to reform NJ’s marijuana laws, both to legalize recreational pot and also to fix NJ’s badly broken medical marijuana program. It’s a start. S10 passed the Senate Health Committee 7 votes to 1 with 1 abstention.
(Trenton)- I’ve been HIV+ for 27 years and I’ve been using medical cannabis the entire time. Most of that time as a criminal.
Everyone knows New Jersey’s medical marijuana program needs work. Cannabis therapy is way too expensive and hard to get in a state with only six dispensaries. And did I mention it’s expensive? Anyone who maxes out their monthly 2 ounce allotment shells out roughly $900 for their medicine.
And don’t get me started with the litany of regulations.
Ok, go ahead, get me started.
Some of the rules seem deliberately mean-spirited. There’s no cure for HIV/AIDS. But I must book extra doctor visits every two months to re-certify that I haven’t been miraculously cured of HIV.
Six times a year, a hundred dollars a pop for the past six years equals $3,600 out-of-pocket to re-certify I’m actually HIV+.
Not for nothing, $3,600 would pay off my car note. But in NJ’s $3,600 is the price of admission.
Luckily for me, I’m in the middle class, huh? Because if you’re not middle class or better, this program falls short.
Committee Votes
Today we’ll see debate on a bill, S10, that finally addresses re-certification, the most pernicious, onerous regulation on the books. Should this pass, patients would re-certify annually instead of 6 times a years.
This bill’s passage saves me time and $500 a year in co-pays.
Five hundred dollars is a car payment. You know what $500 won’t get you? An ounce of cannabis at the Egg Harbor NJ dispensary where, last I checked, ounces were selling for $520, an astonishing price point, among the highest in America.
Mine is just one anecdote. And while mileage may very, there are 37,000 medical marijuana patients in NJ, all jumping the same hurdles to stay complaint. Today’s bill S10 removes many of the worst hurdles. Now re-certification can happen concurrently with routine lab work or during my regular visits with my PCP or nurse practitioner.
But……
Those high prices at dispensaries still force many medical cannabis users to the black market.
The black market in cannabis is robust in NJ. Likewise, there are many places outside of the Garden State that accept NJ medical cannabis ID, including DC and Michigan.
Let’s do some more math: I can get a $219 plane ticket and fly to Detroit and get a $129 hotel room for the night. Even after Uber’ing all over town ($50) and getting myself a nice dinner ($50), I could buy 2 ounces of medical cannabis ($360) in Michigan, have it UPS’d back ($19) and spend less ($808 total) for 2oz, an amount that would set me back $1040 in Egg Harbor.
Shipping cannabis from Michigan or driving in back from DC is very illegal. Buying it from the nice hippie lady down the street is also illegal.
Lack of liberty is a distinct feature of NJ’s medical marijuana program so far, with so many patients like myself acquiring outside of regulation. I’ve made exactly one legal purchase in NJ since February. After 27 years with HIV I’m (mostly) still a cannabis criminal here in NJ, the state whose marijuana laws I’m devoted to reforming.
And that burns.
I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M STILL ALL CAPS ABOUT THIS!?!?
The legislation proposed today does not address the 6.25% tariff levied on medical marijuana sales in NJ. Surely we can agree that medicine should be sales tax-free, right?
Looking at you NJGOP! Remember all those endless campaign ads about lowering my taxes?! Well here ya go! Let’s clean up Chris Christie’s mess!
The cannabis debate gives a badly beleaguered NJGOP a chance to be relevant to an important discussion. They could follow Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) and contribute meaningfully to this debate. Or take their cues from Senator Gerry Candinale (R-Bergen) who was recently seen recycling old pot myths.
Sadly…..
There is no appetite whatsoever among lawmakers and regulators for patients to grow their own cannabis. Even though doing so would mostly fix what ails NJ’s program. This leaves NJ at odds with other medical cannabis state where patients have the liberty to grow their own.
The New Jersey Senate health committee will hear a boatload about home-grow Monday, and rightfully so. They won’t listen this time. But I hope they soften their resistance to letting patients grow their own marijuana. For the next round of improvements, at least.
The NJ Senate Health Committee will debate and vote on several measures to improve NJ’s medical marijuana program at 10am on Monday NOV 26.
Legal pot is a disaster waiting to happen! One has just to look at the mess Colorado is in, however, NJ politicians just care about tax revenue and not the well being of the kids. SHAMEFUL!
Marijuana consumers deserve and demand equal rights and protections under our laws that are currently afforded to the drinkers of far more dangerous and deadly, yet perfectly legal, widely accepted, endlessly advertised and even glorified as an All-American pastime, alcohol.
Plain and simple!
Legalize Nationwide!
Why do you feel justified in endlessly wasting billions upon billions of our yearly tax dollars continuing to arrest, criminalize, incarcerate, and hand out life long permanent criminal records to otherwise hard-working, tax-paying, adult citizens for choosing to consume marijuana although it is far safer than perfectly legal, widely accepted alcohol?
LOL, EVERYTHING you speak of goes against what Colorado has proven to be true, legalizing recreational marijuana is bad news. The BILLION dollar pot industry DOES gear itself towards “The Children.” You really believe POT TARTS are made for mature adults? The Governor of Colorado stated that if he had to do it over, he wouldn’t support the legalization of recreational marijuana! You can never win with Pot-heads, reality or facts don’t matter (SAM&&dfaf.org). I’m sure there will be another War & Peace lengthily style diatribe to follow.
Lmao@ desperate anti-marijuana prohibitionist zealots who try to link the viewers/reading public to S.A.M. referring to their propaganda as “facts”…lol and Tff!
It’s because anti-marijuana prohibitionist zealots can’t ever justify their very obvious and irrational moral disdain, contempt and anger towards both marijuana and its consumers.
S.A.M. does not fool, frighten, nor convince anybody with their very obvious anti-marijuana prohibitionist propaganda and intentional misinformation.
No matter how hard those who are obviously morally against marijuana continue to push and tout this modern day Reefer-Madness-like anti-marijuana prohibitionist propaganda over and over and over again.
The public as a whole see’s this intentional misinformation as mere amusement. Funny, and utterly desperate. A good laugh.
Just like most sane and impartial people get a chuckle out of the original Reefer Madness film.
Again: (..a little recap and to sum it up for you)
Fear of Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever. So please prohibitionists, we beg you to give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Marijuana Nationwide a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?
Furthermore, if all prohibitionists get when they look into that nice, big and shiny, crystal ball of theirs, while wondering about the future of marijuana legalization, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest they return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money they shelled out for it, since it’s obviously defective.
There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize marijuana nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.
The prohibitionist view on marijuana is the viewpoint of a minority and rapidly shrinking percentage of Americans. It is based upon decades of lies and propaganda.
Each and every tired old lie they have propagated has been thoroughly proven false by both science and society.
Their tired old rhetoric no longer holds any validity. The vast majority of Americans have seen through the sham of marijuana prohibition in this day and age. The number of prohibitionists left shrinks on a daily basis.
With their credibility shattered, and their not so hidden agendas visible to a much wiser public, what’s left for a marijuana prohibitionist to do?
Maybe, just come to terms with the fact that Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide!…and Support All Marijuana Legalization Efforts!
Stoners are in denial so there will be no further replies. Reasoning with them is like discussing the caravan with denying liberals and the unsafe situation at the border.
Here are UNDISPUTED results of legalized RECREATIONAL marijuana in Colorado. (Not Soros/Pot Industry propaganda.) Read the following New Jersey, is this what you really want?
1. The majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana and 25 to 40 percent were marijuana alone.
2. In 2012, 10.47 percent of Colorado youth ages 12 to 17 were considered current marijuana users compared to 7.55 percent nationally. Colorado ranked fourth in the nation, and was 39 percent higher than the national average.
3. Drug-related student suspensions/expulsions increased 32 percent from school years 2008-09 through 2012-13, the vast majority were for marijuana violations.
4. In 2012, 26.81 percent of college-age students were considered current marijuana users compared to 18.89 percent nationally, which ranks Colorado third in the nation and 42 percent above the national average.
5. In 2013, 48.4 percent of Denver adult arrestees tested positive for marijuana, which is a 16 percent increase from 2008.
6. From 2011 through 2013 there was a 57 percent increase in marijuana-related emergency room visits.
7. Hospitalizations related to marijuana has increased 82 percent since 2008.
Don’t expect this data to impact the push to legalize pot in in New Jersey, or elsewhere for that matter. Big pot is big business, and the push to legalize is really all about profit, despite inconvenient facts.
Drug policy should be based on hard science and reliable data. And the data coming out of Colorado points to one and only one conclusion: the legalization of marijuana in the state is terrible public policy.
Reply Reply All Forward
Prohibitionists always use terms like “INVOLVED” , “RELATED” or “LINKED” when they tout these horrific sounding statistics and claims. Because they can’t ever prove marijuana impairment alone to be the actual “CAUSE”.
This is nothing more than merely another prohibitionist scare tactic. The goal being to frighten and alarm the public back into the strict prohibition of marijuana.
Well guess what? The public isn’t buying it and everyone sees the deceit by ever more desperate prohibitionist zealots. Hell-bent on keeping marijuana illegal. So, the public is already well aware that when such claims are made about marijuana “INVOLVED/RELATED/LINKED” accidents, E.R. visits and deaths, they are flat out lies!
Nobody is so gullible as to believe these utterly nonsense prohibitionist claims of massive amounts of new marijuana impaired drivers.
Now, I challenge all anti-marijuana prohibitionist types publicly yet again:
Please provide us proof of just a single very serious death proven hundred percent to have been “CAUSED” (Not “INVOLVED/ Not “RELATED”/Not “LINKED”) by marijuana impairment and only marijuana impairment, alone.
The public is waiting for prohibitionists to provide indisputable proof of just one such death “CAUSED” directly and solely by marijuana impairment, alone. Just one. (Not even the massive influx prohibitionists claim. Just one.)
We’ll wait….and wait…and wait….While we all know they simply can’t. Because it’s all just propaganda, lies, and scare-tactics.
*yawns*
Next?
There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize marijuana nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.
The prohibitionist view on marijuana is the viewpoint of a minority and rapidly shrinking percentage of Americans. It is based upon decades of lies and propaganda.
Each and every tired old lie they have propagated has been thoroughly proven false by both science and society.
Their tired old rhetoric no longer holds any validity. The vast majority of Americans have seen through the sham of marijuana prohibition in this day and age. The number of prohibitionists left shrinks on a daily basis.
With their credibility shattered, and their not so hidden agendas visible to a much wiser public, what’s left for a marijuana prohibitionist to do?
Maybe, just come to terms with the fact that Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide!…and Support All Marijuana Legalization Efforts!
Fear of Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is unfounded. Not based on any science or fact whatsoever. So please prohibitionists, we beg you to give your scare tactics, “Conspiracy Theories” and “Doomsday Scenarios” over the inevitable Legalization of Marijuana Nationwide a rest. Nobody is buying them anymore these days. Okay?
Furthermore, if all prohibitionists get when they look into that nice, big and shiny, crystal ball of theirs, while wondering about the future of marijuana legalization, is horror, doom, and despair, well then I suggest they return that thing as quickly as possible and reclaim the money they shelled out for it, since it’s obviously defective.
The prohibition of marijuana has not decreased the supply nor the demand for marijuana at all. Not one single iota, and it never will. Just a huge and complete waste of our tax dollars to continue criminalizing citizens for choosing a natural, non-toxic, relatively benign plant proven to be much safer than alcohol.
If prohibitionists are going to take it upon themselves to worry about “saving us all” from ourselves, then they need to start with the drug that causes more death and destruction than every other drug in the world COMBINED, which is alcohol!
Why do prohibitionists feel the continued need to vilify and demonize marijuana when they could more wisely focus their efforts on a real, proven killer, alcohol, which again causes more destruction, violence, and death than all other drugs, COMBINED?
Prohibitionists really should get their priorities straight and/or practice a little live and let live. They’ll live longer, happier, and healthier, with a lot less stress if they refrain from being bent on trying to control others through Draconian Marijuana Laws.
Regarding “The Children”,
Let’s not use “The Children” as an excuse to prohibit and criminalize adult use of a natural plant far less dangerous than perfectly legal alcohol because nobody condones child use, and this is about allowing adults only to choose marijuana.
It’s our responsibility as parents by to educate our children on drug use. It’s not the government’s job to force Draconian Marijuana Laws upon every adult citizen under the guise of protecting “The Children”.
What message are we sending our children when it is easier for them to obtain marijuana now with it being illegal than it is for them to buy alcohol?
It doesn’t take the intellect of a genius to understand that stores card kids for I.D. Thugs and gang members do not. They also push the real hard drugs on children. Stores do not.
Marijuana legalization will make it harder for children to obtain it.
What message does it send our children when the President of The United States himself alongside a long list of successful people openly admit regular pot use at one time or another in their lives?
While we tell our kids how it will ruin their futures, and then ensure so, by allowing our government to to jail our children and give them permanent criminal records when they get caught with a little Marijuana. Especially, if they are the wrong skin color or from the “wrong neighborhood”. Which in turn, ruins their chances of employment for life.
The Prohibition of Marijuana is the wrong message to send our children while we glorify, advertise and promote the much more dangerous use of alcohol like it’s an all American pastime.
The worst thing about marijuana and our children is what happens to them when they get caught up in the criminal justice system due to it’s prohibition.
Protect “The Children” and Our Neighborhoods Through The Legalization and Regulation of Marijuana Nationwide!
It’s time for us, the majority of The People to take back control of our national medical marijuana policy. By voting OUT of office any and all politicians who very publicly and vocally admit to having an anti-medical marijuana, prohibitionist agenda! Time to vote’em all OUT of office. Period. Plain and simple.
Politicians who continue to demonize Medical Marijuana, Corrupt Law Enforcement Officials who prefer to ruin peoples lives over Marijuana possession rather than solve real crimes who fund their departments toys and salaries with monies acquired through Marijuana home raids, seizures and forfeitures, and so-called “Addiction Specialists” who make their income off of the judicial misfortunes of our citizens who choose marijuana, – Your actions go against The Will of The People and Your Days In Office Are Numbered! Find new careers before you don’t have one.
The People have spoken! Get on-board with Medical Marijuana Legalization Nationwide, or be left behind and find new careers. Your choice.
Legalize Medical Marijuana Nationwide!.
When a loved one is in pain, wasting away unable to eat, and needs this marvelous herb in order to increase their appetite, reduce the overwhelming pain, and live as as healthy and happily as they can with the time they have left, let’s have the compassion to allow them to have it.
Stop treating Medical Marijuana Patients like second rate citizens and common criminals by forcing them to the dangerous black market for their medicine.
Risking incarceration to obtain the medicine you need is no way to be forced to live.
Support Medical Marijuana Now!
“[A] federal policy that prohibits physicians from alleviating suffering by prescribing marijuana for seriously ill patients is misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane.” — Dr. Jerome Kassirer, “Federal Foolishness and Marijuana,” editorial, New England Journal of Medicine, January 30, 1997
“[M]arijuana has an extremely wide acute margin of safety for use under medical supervision and cannot cause lethal reactions … [G]reater harm is caused by the legal consequences of its prohibition than possible risks of medicinal use.” — American Public Health Association, Resolution #9513, “Access to Therapeutic Marijuana/Cannabis,” 1995
“The National Nurses Society on Addictions urges the federal government to remove marijuana from the Schedule I category immediately, and make it available for physicians to prescribe. NNSA urges the American Nurses’ Association and other health care professional organizations to support patient access to this medicine.” — National Nurses Society on Addictions, May 1, 1995
“When appropriately prescribed and monitored, marijuana/cannabis can provide immeasurable benefits for the health and well-being of our patients … We support state and federal legislation not only to remove criminal penalties associated with medical marijuana, but further to exclude marijuana/cannabis from classification as a Schedule I drug.” — American Academy of HIV Medicine, letter to New York Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, November 11, 2003
“[The AAFP accepts the use of medical marijuana] under medical supervision and control for specific medical indications.” — American Academy of Family Physicians, 1989, reaffirmed in 2001
“[We] recommend … allow[ing] [marijuana] prescription where medically appropriate.” — National Association for Public Health Policy, November 15, 1998
“Therefore be it resolved that the American Nurses Association will: — Support the right of patients to have safe access to therapeutic marijuana/cannabis under appropriate prescriber supervision.” — American Nurses Association, resolution, 2003
Nobody can deny the Medical effectiveness of Medical Marijuana.
Below is a small list of just a few of the many Professional Medical Organizations Worldwide that attest to Medical Marijuana’s effectiveness and Support Legal Access to and Use of Medical Marijuana.
Along with over thirty U.S states that have already legalized medical marijuana.
Are they ALL wrong?
International and National Organizations
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Treatment News
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Medical Student Association
American Nurses Association
American Preventive Medical Association
American Public Health Association
American Society of Addiction Medicine
Arthritis Research Campaign (United Kingdom)
Australian Medical Association (New South Wales) Limited
Australian National Task Force on Cannabis
Belgian Ministry of Health
British House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology
British House of Lords Select Committee On Science and Technology (Second Report)
British Medical Association
Canadian AIDS Society
Canadian Special Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs
Dr. Dean Edell (surgeon and nationally syndicated radio host)
French Ministry of Health
Health Canada
Kaiser Permanente
Lymphoma Foundation of America
The Montel Williams MS Foundation
Multiple Sclerosis Society (Canada)
The Multiple Sclerosis Society (United Kingdom)
National Academy of Sciences Institute Of Medicine (IOM)
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Nurses Society on Addictions
Netherlands Ministry of Health
New England Journal of Medicine
New South Wales (Australia) Parliamentary Working Party on the Use of Cannabis for Medical Purposes
Dr. Andrew Weil (nationally recognized professor of internal medicine and founder of the National Integrative Medicine Council)
State and Local Organizations
Alaska Nurses Association
Being Alive: People With HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
California Academy of Family Physicians
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Colorado Nurses Association
Connecticut Nurses Association
Florida Governor’s Red Ribbon Panel on AIDS
Florida Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Illinois Nurses Association
Life Extension Foundation
Medical Society of the State of New York
Mississippi Nurses Association
New Jersey State Nurses Association
New Mexico Medical Society
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York County Medical Society
New York State Nurses Association
North Carolina Nurses Association
Rhode Island Medical Society
Rhode Island State Nurses Association
San Francisco Mayor’s Summit on AIDS and HIV
San Francisco Medical Society
Vermont Medical Marijuana Study Committee
Virginia Nurses Association
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Additional AIDS Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a February 17, 1999 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “make marijuana legally available … to people living with AIDS.”
AIDS Action Council
AIDS Foundation of Chicago
AIDS National Interfaith Network (Washington, DC)
AIDS Project Arizona
AIDS Project Los Angeles
Being Alive: People with HIV/AIDS Action Committee (San Diego, CA)
Boulder County AIDS Project (Boulder, CO)
Colorado AIDS Project
Center for AIDS Services (Oakland, CA)
Health Force: Women and Men Against AIDS (New York, NY)
Latino Commission on AIDS
Mobilization Against AIDS (San Francisco, CA)
Mothers Voices to End AIDS (New York, NY)
National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender Association
National Native American AIDS Prevention Center
Northwest AIDS Foundation
People of Color Against AIDS Network (Seattle, WA)
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Whitman-Walker Clinic (Washington, DC)
Other Health Organizations
The following organizations are signatories to a June 2001 letter to the US Department of Health petitioning the federal government to “allow people suffering from serious illnesses … to apply to the federal government for special permission to use marijuana to treat their symptoms.”
Addiction Treatment Alternatives
AIDS Treatment Initiatives (Atlanta, GA)
American Public Health Association
American Preventive Medical Association
Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights (San Francisco, CA)
California Legislative Council for Older Americans
California Nurses Association
California Pharmacists Association
Embrace Life (Santa Cruz, CA)
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Hawaii Nurses Association
Hepatitis C Action and Advisory Coalition
Life Extension Foundation
Maine AIDS Alliance
Minnesota Nurses Association
Mississippi Nurses Association
National Association of People with AIDS
National Association for Public Health Policy
National Women’s Health Network
Nebraska AIDS Project
New Mexico Nurses Association
New York City AIDS Housing Network
New York State Nurses Association Ohio Patient Network Okaloosa AIDS Support and Information Services (Fort Walton, FL)
Physicians for Social Responsibility – Oregon
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
Virginia Nurses Association
Wisconsin Nurses Association
Health Organizations Supporting Medical Marijuana Research
International and National Organizations
American Cancer Society
American Medical Association
British Medical Journal
California Medical Association
California Society on Addiction Medicine
Congress of Nursing Practice
Gay and Lesbian Medical Association
Jamaican National Commission on Ganja
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Workshop on the Medical Utility of Marijuana
Texas Medical Association
Vermont Medical Society
Wisconsin State Medical Society
There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize marijuana nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.
The prohibitionist view on marijuana is the viewpoint of a minority and rapidly shrinking percentage of Americans. It is based upon decades of lies and propaganda.
Each and every tired old lie they have propagated has been thoroughly proven false by both science and society.
Their tired old rhetoric no longer holds any validity. The vast majority of Americans have seen through the sham of marijuana prohibition in this day and age. The number of prohibitionists left shrinks on a daily basis.
With their credibility shattered, and their not so hidden agendas visible to a much wiser public, what’s left for a marijuana prohibitionist to do?
Maybe, just come to terms with the fact that Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide!…and Support All Marijuana Legalization Efforts!