New Jersey Legislative Hearing on Medical Marijuana Scheduled

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more info, contact: Ken @ (609) 394-2137

New Jersey Legislative Hearing on Medical Marijuana Scheduled

WHO:  The Health and Senior Services Committee of the New Jersey State Assembly

WHAT:   Will consider the "New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act” (A804)

WHEN:   Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.

WHERE: Committee Room #16 in the New Jersey State House Annex

 

The Health and Senior Services Committee of the New Jersey State Assembly will conduct a hearing on “The New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act” A804, on Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. in Committee Room # 16 in the State House Annex.  The Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey, Inc., (CMMNJ) has supported this bill since it was originally introduced in January 2005.  The assembly health committee held an informational hearing on the bill in May 2008, but the upcoming hearing will be the committee’s first opportunity to vote on the issue.  “We hope that the bill will pass out of committee with a recommendation for a favorable vote by the entire Assembly,” said Ken Wolski, RN, Executive Director of CMMNJ.  The New Jersey Senate approved the bill in February 2009 and Governor Jon Corzine has promised to sign the bill when it gets to his desk.  Attorney General Anne Milgram has said that the bill is “workable,” and every major newspaper in New Jersey has editorially endorsed this bill.  Americans approve of medical marijuana by an overwhelming margin, according to all polls.   Nurse Wolski calls marijuana a safe, effective and inexpensive therapeutic agent and is convinced that marijuana will be legal for patients to use throughout the country, eventually.  “Yet every day,” he said, “I hear of another seriously ill New Jersey patient who is suffering needlessly without it, or who has been arrested for using medical marijuana.  This is not only inhumane; it is a terrible waste of state resources.”

 

Many professional healthcare organizations have endorsed medical marijuana 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, and the New Jersey Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.   However, marijuana is not available in pharmacies yet, so New Jersey patients or their caregivers would have to grow their own marijuana, as patients are allowed to do in the 13 other states that approve its use.  The senate version of the bill provided for the establishment of collective gardens in the form of Alternative Treatment Centers.  If approved, New Jersey would be the 14^th state in the U.S. to pass legislation protecting patients who use marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation. 

 

For more info, contact:

 

Ken Wolski, RN, MPA, Executive Director

Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey, Inc.
844 Spruce St., Trenton, NJ  08648
609.394.2137 www.cmmnj.org   ohamkrw@aol.com