Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy
The New Jersey General Assembly voted Monday night to approve a marijuana decriminalization bill, Assembly Bill 1465, even after Gov. Chris Christie (R) threatened to veto it. The measure passed on a vote of 44-30, not quite enough votes to override a veto unless a current "no" vote switches over to the other side.
The bill now awaits action in the Senate. The entire legislature typically takes a summer break in July and August, but the bill could move before then.
Just days ago, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I) signed a decriminalization bill into law there, making it the ninth state, along with California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York and Oregon, to define small-time pot possession as a civil -- not a criminal -- offense.
Five other states typically lumped in as decriminalization territory actually treat small-time possession as a misdemeanor, but only allow fines, not jail time. Those states are Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio. One state, Alaska, has legalized the in-home possession of small amounts of marijuana.
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Comments
STOP!
Prohibition's underlying ideology is based wholly on fear, hate, envy, and greed - leading universally and invariably to abject failure, economic collapse, sickness and war.
Ending prohibition would greatly reduce, even almost eliminate, the market in illegal narcotics, cause a reduction in the number of users and addicts, greatly curtail drug related illness and deaths, reduce societal harm from problematic abusers, and bring about an enormous reduction in the presence and influence of organized crime. The people who use drugs are our own children, our brothers, our sisters, our parents and our neighbors. By allowing all adults safe and controlled legal access to psychoactive substances, we will not only greatly reduce the dangers for both them and ourselves but also greatly minimize the possibility of 'peer-initiation' and sales to minors.
Never have so many been harmed and impoverished by so few, so quickly. Prohibition is not just an extremely expensive accident. Like any harmful and completely ineffective policy, it was connived and implemented by immoral, malicious, fools. It cannot be ended soon enough.
After many decades of drug-war-dystopia, don't we all deserve a healthy, safe and prosperous future?
Just say no to prohibition-insanity, prohibition-corruption, prohibition-violence and prohibition-terrorism!
NJ Marijuana Bill
It would be a huge benefit if the bill did not pass in the Senate. If New Jersey decriminalized the possession of marijuana, the courts would not have to deal with these issues as much. Also, if a citizen has possession of a certain amount of marijuana, they could be given a fine instead of going to jail.
CMMNJ supports marijuana decriminalization
The Coalition for Medical Marijuana—New Jersey, Inc. (CMMNJ) supports Assembly Bill 1465 which decriminalizes possession of 15 grams of marijuana or less. This bill will provide a level of protection for thousands of sick, disabled, and dying patients which New Jersey's medical marijuana law does not provide.
The mission of CMMNJ is to educate the public about the medical benefits of marijuana. Since CMMNJ was founded in 2003, Board members of this organization have taken a strictly neutral stance on the issue of broader legalization of marijuana. But at this time the Board of CMMNJ has endorsed A1465 for these reasons:
New Jersey’s medicinal marijuana law is a failure. The original bill was introduced into the legislature in January 2005. This bill was meant to protect patients who are suffering from debilitating medical conditions and who use marijuana on the advice of licensed physicians. After five years of debate the bill was signed into law in January 2010. Yet as of today, not a single patient or caregiver in New Jersey has even received an ID card from the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS). Not a single Alternative Treatment Center is yet open for business and not a single legal marijuana plant is yet growing in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, patients continue to be arrested and imprisoned for using marijuana to treat debilitating and even fatal medical conditions here. Eric Hafner was recently arrested in Monmouth County for possession of less than a gram of marijuana. Eric, a card-carrying medical marijuana patient from California, faces up to a year in a New Jersey jail when his case comes to trial later this year.
Even if the DHSS’s MMP ever gets operation, it is wildly deficient in properly identifying patients who can benefit from medical marijuana in New Jersey. Chronic pain, for example, is considered a qualifying condition only if it is associated with HIV/AIDS or cancer. All other cases of chronic pain are disqualified. There are an estimated 75 million cases of chronic pain in the United States--about one in four people suffer from this at some point in their lives. Given New Jersey’s population of over eight million people, this means that over two million New Jerseyans could benefit from medical marijuana for chronic pain alone. All but a handful of these patients are disqualified by the MMP.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that one in four Americans suffer from mental illness at some time in their lives. Many of these patients could benefit from marijuana therapy. There is a wealth of evidence that marijuana can be useful in the management of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, mania, crippling anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and even some cases of schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Current research has even identified the component of marijuana—a cannabinoid—that has anti-psychotic properties. Moreover, marijuana’s safety margin is certainly far greater than those of the accepted and traditional pharmaceutical interventions for these maladies. Yet no mental or emotional disorders qualify for marijuana therapy in New Jersey.
The DHSS is empowered to add qualifying conditions for marijuana therapy at any time. Yet the DHSS has proposed a most cumbersome process to do so in the regulations that they have adopted. CMMNJ predicts it will be a minimum of five years before the chronic pain category is expanded, and a minimum of ten years before mental or emotional conditions are added as qualifying conditions for marijuana therapy in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, legitimate patients continue to be dragged through the legal system and even imprisoned for following the advice of their physicians. Millions more suffer needlessly while a viable therapeutic agent is readily at hand. This is unacceptable.
Marijuana’s therapeutic potential is enormous. Clearly, the criminal justice system is not qualified to determine who the legitimate patients are. Neither has the state legislature nor the DHSS shown that they are up to the task. Leave this up to the medical community in New Jersey to determine who is using marijuana appropriately, as medicine. Meanwhile, stop arresting patients.
CMMNJ urges the Assembly Judiciary Committee to support A1465. Thank you.
Ken Wolski, RN, MPA, Executive Director
Coalition for Medical Marijuana—New Jersey, Inc. (www.cmmnj.org)
219 Woodside Ave., Trenton, NJ 08618
609.394.2137
Obese people like Christie shouldn't throw public health stones
Obesity is a very costly public health problem. From a public health perspective cannabis use is far preferable to the alternative of alcohol use. The public health community is perfectly well aware of this, but they're too chickenshit to share what they know, they'd rather keep it a secret.
WEED1465ALLOWEDTOSMOKE
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