Medical Marijuana

Even as medical marijuana's cascading political momentum becomes undeniable, there nevertheless remain a few aspiring comedians in the press who just can't talk about it with a straight face: 

NJ 'joint' vote to legalize medical pot

By ED ROBINSON and MAGGIE HABERMAN

New Jersey moved to the brink of legalizing medical marijuana last night when both houses of the state Legislature voted that it's high time to make the move. [New York Post]

Get it? 'Joint' vote? 'High' time? You're lucky if you saw this story first in the New York Post, because none of the other papers covered yesterday's developments with such irreverence. For example, check out NYT's boring coverage, which completely fails to find any humor in the situation and focuses instead on the seriously ill patients who will soon have legal access to their medicine.

Ed and Maggie were so busy dreaming up clever puns that they got a little sloppy with the facts:

The weed would be doled out by authorized state suppliers under the bill, which would make the Garden State the 14th to allow purchase of pot for medical reasons -- though the home-grown type would still be outlawed.

Actually, most of those states don't permit medical marijuana sales, and it's typical that the reporters who work hardest to make jokes about marijuana policy also have the toughest time getting the details right. Fortunately, New Jersey's lawmakers, as well as the American people and even the White House have come to understand that there's nothing the least bit funny about ending the arrest of seriously ill patients who rely on marijuana for medical treatment.

Whether you're the New York Post, or even the President of the New Jersey Senate, if you think anyone's looking for laughs in the medical marijuana debate, the joke's on you.

New Jersey is set to become the 14th state to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana after the state Assembly Monday approved the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act" by a vote of 46-14. Later Monday evening, the state Senate, which had already approved its version of the measure, voted final approval by a margin of 25-13. Outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine (D) has said he will sign the bill. The Assembly debated the bill for half an hour Monday afternoon before approving it. The debate took place before galleries backed with bill supporters and opponents. It was a similar scene in the Senate a few hours later. "It does not make sense for many of New Jersey's residents to suffer when there is a viable way to ease their pain," said Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), one of the sponsors of the bill. "Medical marijuana can alleviate a lot of suffering, and there is no evidence that legalizing it for medical use increases overall drug use." The bill will be one of the most restrictive in the nation. Patients diagnosed by their primary care physician as having a qualifying medical condition would be allowed to obtain—but not grow—medical marijuana through one of at least six "alternative treatment centers," or dispensaries. But patients would be able to register with only one dispensary at a time and would have to use the written recommendation within a month of when it was written. Qualifying medical conditions include severe or chronic pain, severe nausea or vomiting or cachexia brought on by HIV/AIDS or cancer ("or the treatment thereof"), muscular dystrophy, inflammatory bowel diseases, and terminal illnesses where the patient has less than a year to live. Chronic pain was removed from the original bill in an Assembly committee vote last summer, but reinserted last week when the Assembly approved an amendment by Assemblyman Gusciora. Patients could possess up to two ounces and be prescribed up to two ounces per month. That is an increase from the one ounce possession limit in earlier versions of the bill. Patients would be able to name a caregiver, courier, or delivery option to pick up medicine at the dispensary and deliver it to them. "This will be the strictest medical marijuana law in the nation," Gusciora said at a statehouse press conference Monday. "We have a good bill that will be very strict and will not decriminalize marijuana, but will allow doctors to prescribe the best treatment for their patients." Roseanne Scotti, director of the Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey office, who has lobbied tirelessly for passage of a medical marijuana bill, agreed that the final Garden State bill is very tight, but said it was a start. "There will be some patients who will be able to get some relief," she said. "We think once the program's up and running and people see that there aren't problems, we'll be able to go back and get in some more of our patients." Also at the press conference were patients Diane Riportella and Mike Oliveri. Riportella was diagnosed with Lu Gerhrig's Disease in 2007 and given no more than five years to live. Oliveri suffers from muscular dystrophy. "I'm so excited to be able to be alive and to be here for this moment," said Riportella, 53, of Egg Harbor Township. "Within a few seconds, I'm relaxed and I'm smiling and I go to Disneyland just for a few minutes and say 'It's not so bad, I can live another day,'" Riportella said. Oliveri, 25, said he moved from his New Jersey home to California in order to be able to legally access medical marijuana. He said he vaporizes about an ounce a week to ease the pain in his legs and back and calm his digestive tract and that he had used it illegally before leaving for the West Coast. "I took every medication known to man before I took weed," said Oliveri, 25. "I knew it was a risk …but it was a life or death matter." The bill was supported by organizations including the New Jersey State Nurses Association, the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians, the New Jersey Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the New Jersey League for Nursing, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the New Jersey chapters of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Special credit goes to the Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey, the patients' and advocates' group that has fought for years to get the bill over the top. New Jersey will now join Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington in the list of medical marijuana states. That list also includes the District of Columbia.

On the last day of the legislative session, the New Jersey Assembly has approved the state's medical marijuana bill, the Compassionate Use Act, on a vote of 48-14. The state Senate will vote on it later today. Outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine (D) has said he will sign it. Look for a feature post on this once the Senate votes.

Andrew Sullivan points to this ESPN comment regarding NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Percy Harvin:

Harvin was a controversial draft pick after he tested positive for marijuana use at the February scouting combine. But as it turned out, the biggest problem he encountered was an intensification of migraine headaches that has plagued him for much of his life.

Oh, I think I know what's going on here. First, Harvin gets in trouble for testing positive for marijuana. Now he's passing drug tests, but suffering from constant debilitating migraines. Sounds like the NFL has simply prohibited him from using the one medicine that effectively treats his condition.

The thing about marijuana and migraines is that it doesn't just relieve symptoms, it often stops the headaches from ever happening in the first place. I've spoken with many migraine sufferers who've found that even modest use of marijuana simply makes the problem go away. I discovered this for myself in my late teens and it changed my life. I used to wake up everyday wondering if by mid-afternoon, I'd be huddled in a dark room, half-blind, violently nauseous and knowing I'd be unable to function again for 12 hours. It was horrible, but it ended quite abruptly one summer, and it was only later that I came to understand why.

So I can't even begin to describe my frustration at watching a world-class athlete's career jeopardized by the NFL's ridiculous prohibition against marijuana. Banning recreational use is silly, but this is an outrage. If you don't want publicity surrounding marijuana use in professional sports, then stop testing the athletes for marijuana. If that's too much to ask, then at least create an exemption for cases in which a doctor recommends medical use. Believe me, this would generate next to no controversy, although substantial coverage ranging from neutral to positive would be almost guaranteed.

If the President of the United States can embrace a more reasonable medical marijuana policy, there's no reason the NFL can’t do the same.

We've been over this before, but apparently it still hasn’t sunk in. This time, we have the Attorney General of Arkansas trying to claim that federal law prevents his state from protecting medical marijuana patients:

LITTLE ROCK — The state attorney general today rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize marijuana for medical use.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel cited numerous problems with the proposal submitted by Little Rock attorney John Wesley Hall, Jr., including that federal law would supersede a state drug amendment.

"I note as an initial matter that this description fails to acknowledge that your proposed measure cannot completely legalize marijuana in Arkansas for medical purposes because the drug remains illegal under federal law," the opinion said. [Arkansas News]

Really? Then what's all this I keep hearing about 13 states having these laws and the President telling DOJ not to raid the dispensaries? I'm pretty sure everyone knows how this works by now.

What a waste of breath it is to continue insisting that there's some sort of impregnable federal barrier that makes medical marijuana impossible. It's plainly wrong, and not even worthy of being debated. Anyone who says that is just a stubborn and desperate obstructionist who can't even come up with a single real reason to continue criminalizing patients.

I wonder how long it will take to bury this nonsense once and for all. What if Arkansas was the last state in the country with no legal protection for patients? Would their top prosecutor still insist that it can't be done? Come on. At some point you're gonna have to learn to live with medical marijuana, and fighting back against it is both cruel and pointless.

http://fresnobeehive.com/opinion/2009/12/what_are_your_dumbest_trends_o.html My local newspaper, The Fresno Bee, posted an entry in their Opinion Talk Blog asking, "What are your dumbest trends of the decade?" and continues: As this decade stumbles to a conclusion, media outlets have begun putting together their best and worst lists. So I'll join in with my picks of the dumbest trends of the decade, and I hope you'll add yours in the comments section. There are plenty of possibilities in this bizarre decade. I submitted the following comment about medical marijuana, and they included it: One of the dumbest trends of the decade has to be that city and county governments waste so much time and resources that could be better used to better their communities on trying to circumvent California State Medical Marijuana Laws.

An Open Letter From A Fresno, CA Medical Marijuana Patient by Tommy Hawkins Jr. From the Fresno, CA KMPH (FOX) website's community bulletin board:

The jury has returned its verdict in the case of multiple sclerosis patient John Wilson, who was brought up on serious marijuana charges for growing his medicine:

Somerville- The jury returned a not guilty verdict to John Wilson on the first-degree felony charges against him. But the MS patient could still face time in prison after being found guilty of second-degree charges of ‘Manufacturing’ marijuana and third-degree possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms.  

If he had been convicted of "operating and maintaining a marijuana production facility" John would have faced a minimum of 15 years in state prison. That could have amounted to a death sentence for the 37 year old because of the degenerative nature of the disease. [Examiner]

So it could've been worse, but it's awfully hard to get excited about a result that could still send a seriously ill patient to prison. I guess the mushroom possession didn’t help, but shrooms should be legal anyway and I'm sure he found them helpful or he wouldn't have had them.

Let's hope this less-than-worst-case scenario doesn’t suck any momentum from the effort to get Wilson pardoned and pass medical marijuana legislation in New Jersey to prevent such injustices in the future.

Our friends at MPP just caught the drug czar literally editing out the most important part of the American Medical Association's new position on medical marijuana. According to a new ONDCP "factsheet":

The American Medical Association: "To help facilitate scientific research and the development of cannabionoid-based medicines, the AMA adopted (a) new policy … This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product."

Notice how it doesn't say what the "new policy…" actually is? That's because the original quote says, "the AMA adopted new policy urging the federal government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance." Leaving that part out isn't just confusing and dishonest; it looks ridiculous.

If it's now ok to use ellipses to pervert policy positions, maybe I'll just take AMA's statement and do this with it:

"This should…be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, [and] that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product."

Yeah, I like the sound of that. But I'm not going to print it on a "factsheet," because it's not true.

As accustomed as I am to seeing the drug czar's office routinely deploying these sorts of sleazy semantic deceptions, I'm genuinely awed by this one. They buried the lead so blatantly that anyone who reads it ought to just end up wondering what the hell AMA's "new policy" on medical marijuana actually is. And once Google answers that question in a half-second, you might as well have just told the truth or scrubbed AMA off the site altogether like I suggested weeks ago.

Prosecutors in the trial of multiple sclerosis patient John Wilson probably aren’t too happy about this:

A judge reversed course today, allowing a man on trial for possession of 17 marijuana plants that he was growing during the summer of 2008 to testify about his medical condition.

Judge Robert Reed had earlier ruled that defendant John Ray Wilson could not present a defense based on this medical condition.

But then, after taking the stand in his own defense today, and after multiple conferences among the lawyers and the judge, Wilson was allowed to say "I told them(the arresting officers) I was not a drug dealer and I was using the marijuana for my MS(Multiple Sclerosis)." [NBC]

Unfortunately, that's all the judge would allow. Since New Jersey currently has no medical marijuana law, discussion of the defendant's medical use is considered prejudicial to the jury. We can only hope they got the message. John Wilson is a patient, not a criminal.

Regardless of the outcome here, this whole shameful episode powerfully illustrates the urgency of New Jersey's pending medical marijuana legislation. This trial should never have happened in the first place, but the least we can do is make sure it never happens again.