FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 6-4-09
The New Jersey Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee passed the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, forwarding the bill to the full Assembly for a vote this fall.
The Senate version passed a floor vote this February.
The Assembly did offer some substitutions that made some serious changes to the bill that would not serve patients well.
Ken Wolski, a registered nurse and Director of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana - New Jersey said, “I am pleased that the bill passed and this committee vote represents significant progress on medical marijuana in New Jersey. I do have some serious concerns about the amendments and substitutions made to the bill. We at CMM-NJ hope that our legislators will pass a final version bill that is not overly restrictive to help the most amount of suffering patients in our state.”
Chris Goldstein testified on behalf of CMM-NJ and asked that the committee to pass the bill in 2009 without trying to perfect the language. Instead NJ should follow the example of New Mexico. The NM legislation allowed the NM Department of Health to decide the rules on distribution and the registry card system rather than have it defined in the legislation.
Several committee members abstained form voting. The Committee Chairman, Dr. Herb Conaway, showed that he was very well educated on all topics related to medical marijuana. The Chair himself easily countered many of the baseless opposition arguments, including from law enforcement.
Several medical marijuana patients testified before the committee including those suffering from MS, ALS and Chronic Pain.
Audio from the hearing will be available on the NJ Legislature website tomorrow.
For more information please visit www.cmmnj.org
For more info, or Media please contact: Ken @ (609) 394-2137
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