America has the highest incarceration rate in the world. President Obama recently said the U.S. has only 5 percent of the world's population, but has 25 percent of the world's prisoners. What is creating this Incarceration Nation is the War on Drugs, nearly half of which is a war on marijuana. More precisely, it is a war on people who use marijuana. Take, for example, the case of Jon Peditto, whose marijuana trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 20 in Toms River. Peditto was found by law enforcement officers to be growing 17 marijuana plants. For this non-violent crime he faces 31 1/2 years in state prison. [continues 694 words]
The Upper Freehold Township Committee adopted an ordinance this month that is designed to ban medical marijuana facilities in its township ("Construction of pot greenhouses put on hold - Upper Freehold vote prevents town from violating federal law," Dec. 17). The committee said that it would not permit any facility that was engaged in an activity that is against federal law. The ordinance is designed to thwart the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act in favor of the federal law, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). [continues 760 words]
John Wilson, a 38-year-old multiple sclerosis (MS) patient from Somerset, is appealing his recent marijuana conviction to the New Jersey Supreme Court. The trial judge kept crucial facts from the jury, yet an appellate court last month supported the judge's decision. Now the Supreme Court will determine if compassionate justice is possible in New Jersey. About 10 years ago, Wilson was diagnosed with MS, a progressive, neurological disease for which there is no known cure. Wilson's symptoms were headache, blurred vision and numbness from the waist down. Typically, the symptoms of MS worsen over time and may progress to total paralysis and death. [continues 691 words]
During the medical marijuana stakeholders' meeting at the New Jersey State Museum auditorium last month, it was openly stated that the federal government's policy on marijuana was a delusion. A delusion is a fixed, false belief. That the federal government's marijuana policy is fixed is quite clear -- it has not changed in 40 years. Marijuana was determined by Congress to be a Schedule I drug when it passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. A Schedule I drug has "no accepted medical uses in the United States," and is "unsafe for use even under medical supervision." The federal government's position on marijuana is also demonstrably false. [continues 720 words]
Last month, the Legislature delayed medical marijuana access and floated a new concept for the program: Rutgers University could be named as the sole source for all medical cannabis cultivation and the marijuana would be distributed only by hospitals. Patients could access marijuana at hospitals, to be sure, and Rutgers University certainly has the capability of farming medical cannabis. But the university's Boards of Directors and attorneys would be hard-pressed to take on the one thing that private businesses already do: risk. [continues 232 words]
The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act calls for alternative treatment centers (ATCs) to produce, process and distribute marijuana to qualified patients in New Jersey in a program starting in October. As provided by the law, the state Department of Health and Senior Services has the power to "monitor, oversee and investigate all activities performed by" these ATCs. Many nonprofit entities in New Jersey stand ready to apply to the NJDHSS to become ATCs, to pay whatever fees the NJDHSS requires, and to begin providing medical marijuana to qualified New Jersey patients in compliance with the law. [continues 175 words]
I'd like to tell George Will about one of those marijuana "customers" he denigrates in his column, "Rocky Mountain High" (Dec. 11). Tim DaGiau is a full-time college student in Colorado, and he frequents the medical marijuana dispensaries there. Tim suffers from chronic seizures. He has undergone five brain surgeries and has been put on a dozen anti-seizure medications over the years. Tim continued to have seizures while solely on prescription medications, despite the surgeries. Then Tim tried marijuana, and miraculously, the seizures stopped. He continues to use marijuana, with his doctor's recommendation, every day in Colorado, where it is legal for him to do so. Now Tim is seizure-free. He is 20 years old and he looks like a typical college student. In fact, if George Will saw Tim walking into a medical marijuana clinic, Will would be certain that Tim just wanted to smoke pot. The truth is that marijuana is a remarkably safe and effective agent for a wide variety of medical conditions. It is not surprising that patients who have access to therapeutic marijuana appear healthy. [continues 102 words]
To the Editor: David Evans is clearly mistaken about medical marijuana is his letter, "Marijuana: not medicine." Evans said that "virtually all New Jersey medical organizations oppose" the N.J. Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. In 2002, the N.J. State Nurses Association adopted a resolution that recognized the therapeutic value and safety of medically recommended marijuana and urged the governor and state Legislature to move expeditiously to make medical marijuana legally available to residents who can benefit from it. The NJSNA has consistently testified in support of medical marijuana. [continues 199 words]
Times columnist Gregory Sullivan acknowledges marijuana's therapeutic potential, but he argues that federal law must be changed before New Jersey passes its Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (The Times, "Compassionate, but still illegal," Dec. 30). Mr. Sullivan is apparently unaware of the recent U.S. Supreme Court action in the Garden Grove case, which resolved the conflict between federal and state marijuana laws. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear, and thus let stand, a decision from California's Fourth District Court of Appeals, which said: "Congress enacted the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to combat recreational drug abuse and curb drug trafficking. Its goal was not to regulate the practice of medicine, a task that falls within the traditional powers of the states. ... Congress regulates medical practice (only) insofar as it bars doctors from using their prescription-writing powers as a means to engage in illicit drug dealing ... . Beyond this, however, the statute manifests no intent to regulate the practice of medicine generally." [continues 504 words]
The "war on drugs" continues to escalate with the recent arson death of 10-year-old Qua-Daisha in Trenton, and the response by law enforcement ("City police turn up the heat," May 15). Now police are using assault rifles and body armor in this increasingly militarized and unending war. What's next for our streets: tanks and artillery? The war on drugs is a failure that leads only to increasing violence and does nothing to curb drug use or availability. [continues 119 words]
L.A. Parker sounds like a politician in his column, "City men hit death lottery." He proposes to deal with the problem of gang violence by concentrating on elementary school children. That's a politician's feel-good proposal whose results wouldn'tbe known for 10 years or more. It does nothing to address the problem of gang violence now. Guess what? It won't work in 10 years, either. Actions against gangs speak louder than any indoctrinating words to children. [continues 156 words]
I read with interest the story about the student drug testing in "Drug test angers family" (Feb. 9). My concern was the nurse's involvement in this school administrator-ordered test. I was involved with some of the first urine drug testing among in mates in the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC) when I worked as a nurse in a juvenile facility in the mid-1980s. At that time, nurses were required to collect the urine, sign as witness to the collection, label the containers, complete the "chain-of-evidence" form, store the containers in a locked refrigerator, and send them off for analysis. We nurses protested that these were inappropriate actions since: [continues 229 words]
New Jersey lawmakers will soon consider whether to pass into law the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (S-88 and A-933). The act would remove the statewide criminal penalties for the use, possession and cultivation of a small amount of marijuana for qualified patients under a program administered by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services (NJDHSS). The Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey (CMM-NJ) urges lawmakers to support the bill as it is written. Some lawmakers have said that the bill is too broad--that too many patients will qualify for medical marijuana when it passes. CMM-NJ opposes any attempt to restrict the diseases or conditions that would qualify a New Jersey patient for medical marijuana. This is a question that is properly left only to the treating physician. There are, moreover, a number of rare conditions that respond well to medical marijuana. [continues 757 words]
The mission of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey is to bring about safe and legal access to marijuana for New Jersey patients who are under the care of licensed physicians. We believe no one should suffer needlessly, and no one should go to jail for following the advice of their doctor. The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act was introduced in the Assembly by Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, as A-933, and in the Senate by Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, as S-88. This bill would remove the statewide penalties for possession, use and cultivation of a small amount of marijuana when it is recommended by a doctor. [continues 667 words]
Terrence Farley, Ocean County first assistant prosecutor, continues to deny that there is scientific evidence that supports marijuana as medicine. In 1988, the Drug Enforcement Administration concluded two years of hearings on the issue of medical marijuana. The DEA's own Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, found that: "The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasoning, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefit of this substance in light of the evidence in this record." [continues 369 words]
Regarding the letter, "Misinformation abounds on medical marijuana" (Ocean County Observer, Feb. 24), below, is the text of the resolution on medical marijuana that was adopted by the New Jersey State Nurses Association at its last convention in Atlantic City. The New Jersey State Nurses Association Resolution Concerning Therapeutic Marijuana: A number of New Jersey residents would benefit from access to therapeutic marijuana as a form of treatment for their health problems. Whereas: Marijuana has been used medicinally for centuries, and marijuana was widely prescribed by physicians in the United States until 1937, and; [continues 411 words]
Dear Sir: The federal government's campaign against seriously ill Americans who use marijuana medicinally is an atrocity in the "war on drugs" ("Federal Boondoggle - Use of medical marijuana by terminally ill under siege," The Times, March 3, 2002.) Agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently closed several dispensaries in California that were providing marijuana to over a thousand patients. Even in the midst of a war, it is considered humane to allow the sick and dying to be medically treated. It is inhumane to do otherwise. [continues 139 words]
