Doctors would decide which patients should use marijuana as medicine instead of being limited by a narrow list of eligible diseases set by law, under a sweeping medical marijuana overhaul approved by a state Assembly panel Thursday. The measure that cleared the Assembly Health Committee would also allow registered patients to buy up to four ounces of cannabis, or twice as much as they are permitted to obtain now. The dispensaries and cultivators would be divided evenly in the northern, central and southern regions of the state, including the six who are already licensed to grow and sell. [continues 454 words]
TRENTON - After predictions that New Jersey's medical marijuana program could serve tens of thousands of patients with severe and painful illnesses, only 2,342 have signed up - a participation rate so small some worry the very future of the program could be at stake. Lawmakers, some dispensary operators and patients blame the sluggish enrollment on the program's rigid rules, exorbitant costs for patients and growers, and Gov. Chris Christie's contention that he does not need to do anything more to enhance participation. [continues 1148 words]
TRENTON - Medical marijuana will indeed be a cash crop in the Garden State. The Christie administration has determined New Jersey's 7 percent sales tax will apply every time a pre-screened patient buys marijuana from an approved dispensary, state Treasury spokesman Andrew Pratt said late today. The decision could remove the last roadblock to launching New Jersey's medical marijuana program. The one dispensary that will soon be able to sell marijuana, Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair, was holding off on opening and scheduling patients for appointments until the sales tax issue was decided, one of its co-founders, Joe Stevens, told The Star-Ledger earlier this month. [continues 419 words]
[image caption] Jobs seekers line up around the block to attend CannaSearch, Colorado's first cannabis job fair, on March 13, 2014 in Denver. The N.J. State Municipal Prosecutors Association has endorsed a marijuana legalization bill in New Jersey that is modeled after Colorado. (Getty Images) TRENTON - A bill calling for legalizing the possession of up to an ounce marijuana has been endorsed by the New Jersey State Municipal Prosecutors Association, which believes the money spent trying these cases is "silly," the association's president said. [continues 481 words]
NEWARK - The Scotch Plains family who waged a public fight to change New Jersey law so they could obtain medical marijuana for their severely ill young daughter moved to Colorado on Friday, saying that's where they'll find a strain of the drug they hope can save her life. Brian and Meghan Wilson say their battle in New Jersey, which included a public plea to Gov. Chris Christie, led to modest changes in the state's strict law, but isn't enough to help their 2 1/2-year old daughter, Vivian, who has a potentially fatal form of epilepsy. [continues 726 words]
A nationally renowned pediatric neurologist at Saint Barnabas has gotten FDA approval to study whether a cannabis-based drug could prevent seizures in children diagnosed with severe forms of epilepsy. The development is sure to be watched closely in New Jersey, where a number of families whose children have Dravet syndrome, a potentially deadly form of epilepsy, say they cannot obtain yet a useful form of medicinal marijuana through the state Department of Health. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave Orrin Devinsky, director of the New York University and Saint Barnabas Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, Roberta Cilio of the University of California - San Francisco's Neurology Department, and GW Pharmaceuticals of the United Kingdom permission to use the experimental drug, Epidiolex, to treat 125 children with seizure disorders for whom traditional medicines have failed. [continues 658 words]
Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair - New Jersey's only operating medical marijuana dispensary - will be closed for about two weeks to build up a surplus of "quality medicine," one of its co-founders, Julio Valentin, said today. Patients were notified by phone this week that all appointments were cancelled until further notice. When the supply is built up, Greenleaf will call them back, Valentin told The Star-Ledger. The shortage arose because about 10 percent of its crop this month was "inferior," Valentin said. Other plants did not yield the quantity they had anticipated, he added. [continues 653 words]
TRENTON - As the mothers of two chronically sick children cried tears of relief, the Assembly approved a bill today that would remove some of the legal barriers that have prevented kids from benefiting from New Jersey's medicinal marijuana program. The 55-13 vote with nine abstentions in the Assembly was the bill's last stop before going to Gov. Chris Christie, who has reluctantly implemented the medical marijuana law and has said he is "not inclined to allow" children to participate in the program, even though state law allows it. [continues 384 words]
SCOTCH PLAINS - Two-year-old Vivian Wilson sleeps with a heart and oxygen monitor attached to her toe. When she wakes up, the toddler must wear an eye patch and be kept from direct sunlight. An overnight bag, oxygen tanks and other medical equipment are stacked behind the sofa. Vivian is diagnosed with a rare and severe form of epilepsy known as Dravet syndrome. These are a few of the ways her parents relentlessly manage everything that comes into contact with their youngest daughter, who suffered her first seizure when she was 2 months old. [continues 1520 words]
TRENTON - New Jersey's medical marijuana law states the program is open to minors, but Gov. Chris Christie said today he is "not inclined to allow" children to participate. "I'm very concerned, if we go down this slope of allowing minors to use this, where does it ends?" the governor said. Christie was responding to a question concerning a Star-Ledger report Sunday about Vivian Wilson, a 2-year-old child with a severe and rare form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome. She received a medical marijuana identification card from the state Health Department in February, but her parents, Brian and Meghan Wilson of Scotch Plains, have been unable to find a psychiatrist to support her enrollment in the program. The law requires the approval of a pediatrician, a psychiatrist and the child's prescribing physician before the family may purchase the drug on a child's behalf. [continues 397 words]
Montclair Medical Center Gets Conflicting Feedback, Others Are Slow to Open Up TRENTON - The first letter the state Health Department sent to New Jersey's lone medical marijuana dispensary last month described its inventory tracking problems as "inexcusable" and threatened to shut the operation down. The health department's second letter - arriving the next day - expressed appreciation for "the work that you have accomplished thus far" but said Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair could do far more to reduce the mounting backlog of hundreds of patients eager to buy its product. [continues 1064 words]
Montclair Center Gets Mixed Messages, While Others Are Slow to Open Doors TRENTON - The first letter the state Health Department sent to New Jersey's lone medical marijuana dispensary last month described its inventory tracking problems as "inexcusable" and threatened to shut the operation down. The health department's second letter - arriving the next day - expressed appreciation for "the work that you have accomplished thus far" but said Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair could do far more to reduce the mounting backlog of hundreds of patients eager to buy its product. [continues 1063 words]
For Joe Stevens and Julio Valentin, the struggle to open New Jersey's first medical marijuana dispensary often seemed like chasing a mirage. While starting any business is a tall order, try getting into selling medical marijuana just as skittish state officials are making rules under the glare of a governor determined to make sure New Jersey has the toughest restrictions in the nation. Over the span of 21 months, opening the doors to the Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair took dozens of meetings and conference calls, hundreds of pages of paperwork that included everything from background checks and financial disclosure forms to how to collect taxes on pot - and long battles for permits to grow at a secret location and then sell to chronically ill patients. [continues 1402 words]
MONTCLAIR - Jay Lassiter has been HIV positive for 20 years, and for just as long, he has been a self-described "criminal" for buying pot to ease the gut-wrenching nausea he suffers because of his treatment. His criminal activity ended at 2:45 pm today, when he walked out of Greenleaf Compassion Center after making his first legal marijuana purchase at the Bloomfield Avenue shop. Greenleaf, New Jersey's first alternative treatment center - what the state is calling dispensaries - opened Dec. 6. Registered patients have been seen by appointment only so far. [continues 202 words]
TRENTON "" State medical marijuana programs and the people who work for them are not likely to run afoul of federal law if they keep their operations small and controlled, and don't allow growers to create "industrial marijuana cultivation centers," according to an eagerly-awaited letter from the Obama administration. The letter, obtained by The Star-Ledger this evening, comes more than two months after state Attorney General Paula Dow asked the Obama administration whether New Jersey's future medical marijuana program could violate federal law. [continues 933 words]
Webster "Dan" Todd Jr., brother of New Jersey's first female governor, Christie Whitman, is now a pioneer in his own right: he sits on the board of one of the first legally-sanctioned medical marijuana providers in the Garden State. The 72-year-old former Assemblyman said his son, William, is the driving force behind the creation of Compassionate Sciences, Inc., one of six nonprofit agencies the state health department announced Monday would produce and sell the drug later this year. The facility will be run at a location yet to be determined in either Burlington County or Camden County. [continues 433 words]
Diane Riportella is in the final stages of Lou Gehrig's Disease. She expects to die soon. The 54-year-old Egg Harbor Township woman says smoking pot "gives me a reprieve from this living nightmare" by suppressing her pain without relying solely on morphine, which leaves her "lifeless." "When I smoke marijuana, I feel normal. I can express myself and be the person I want," she said at a Senate committee hearing last month. Poonam Alaigh, the state health commissioner and a doctor, also says she has seen the value of medicinal marijuana. One patient suffering from severe nerve pain recently confided to her he has been using pot in addition to prescription painkillers and feels remarkably better. [continues 1529 words]
TRENTON -- Six nonprofit companies would be allowed to grow and sell medical marijuana but patients would not get home delivery service under an accord Gov. Chris Christie announced Friday that may avert a delay in the program's July launch. The agreement could scuttle a move by the Democratic-controlled Legislature to repeal Christie's rules he had said were necessary to prevent the drug from being abused by recreational users. "I have never been opposed to the program. . .or the idea that medical marijuana is available to those truly in need," Christie said. "My entire argument all along was to put together a program that avoids the pitfalls of California and Colorado and was medical-based and responsive." [continues 514 words]
Six nonprofit companies would be allowed to grow and sell medical marijuana but patients would not get home delivery service under an accord Gov. Chris Christie announced Friday that may avert a delay in the program's July launch. The agreement could scuttle a move by the Democratic-controlled Legislature to repeal Christie's rules he had said were necessary to prevent the drug from being abused recreational users. "I have never been opposed to the program ... or the idea that medical marijuana is available to those truly in need," Christie said. "My entire argument all along was to put together a program that avoids the pitfalls of California and Colorado and was medical-based and responsive." [continues 516 words]
TRENTON - Six nonprofit companies would be allowed to grow and sell medical marijuana but patients would not get home delivery service under an accord Gov. Chris Christie announced Friday that may avert a delay in the program's July launch. The agreement could scuttle a move by the Democratic-controlled Legislature to repeal Christie's rules he had said were necessary to prevent the drug from being abused by recreational users. "I have never been opposed to the program ... or the idea that medical marijuana is available to those truly in need, Christie said. "My entire argument all along was to put together a program that avoids the pitfalls of California and Colorado and was medical-based and responsive. [continues 515 words]
