New Jersey Assembly passes medical marijuana, Senate awaits

(New York Times) The New Jersey Assembly approved a measure on Monday that would make the state the first in the region and the 14th in the nation to legalize the use of marijuana for medical reasons.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would sign it into law before leaving office next Tuesday. Gov.-elect Christopher J. Christie, speaking at a press conference on Monday before the vote, reiterated his support for legalizing the medical use of marijuana as long as the final bill contained safeguards to ensure that it did not end up encouraging the recreational use of the drug.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton, said the New Jersey law would be the most restrictive in the nation because it would only permit doctors to prescribe it for a list of serious chronic illnesses.

Translation: no medical marijuana for most cases of chronic pain.

The legislation would also forbid patients from growing their own marijuana and using it in public, and it would regulate the drug under the strict conditions used to track the distribution of medically prescribed opiates like Oxycontin and morphine.

Because we really need to spend state resources ensuring that a non-toxic herb that has never killed anyone gets treated as seriously as highly-addictive, hepatoxic opiates that people overdose and die from every day.  We can’t have New Jersey residents with severe illnesses growing their own remedy; why, that might only cost them dollars per ounce in expenses instead of dollars per gram in a dispensary.

Mr. Christie said he wanted to make sure that New Jersey did not follow the path of other states that have legalized the medical use of marijuana.

“I think we see all what’s happened in California,” Mr. Christie said. “It’s gotten completely out of control.”

Really?  So, since medical marijuana is “completely out of control” in California (read: the greatest number of people who can benefit from it can actually get it), Mr. Christie wants to be sure that New Jersey doesn’t follow the path of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan, Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island?  How is it that looking at the least restrictive law in the land makes you want to craft the most restrictive law in the land, rather than following the examples of some of the states that have passed fairly restrictive laws?  Isn’t it a bit like saying you don’t like how vicious pit bulls are*, so instead of getting some other breed of dog, you buy a kitten?

By the end of the day today we should know whether the Senate passes their bill and Gov. Corzine signs it, making New Jersey the 14th medical marijuana state.  Follow the Senate proceedings here.

*Yes, I know.  Pit bulls are only as vicious as their owners train them to be.  All dogs can be trained to be vicious killers, it’s just that you don’t worry too much about the vicious chihuahua…