Address Medical Marijuana Program's short-comings

                     
                         FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more info, Jay Lassiter, Media Director, Coalition for Medical Marijuana--NJ at (856) 236-7199

Activists to lawmakers: Address Medical Marijuana Program's short-comings

WHO: Assemblymen Michael Patrick Carroll and Reed Gusciora; Joseph Jimenez, MD; Ken Wolski, RN; Jay Lassiter, HIV+ Patient Advocate; and Vanessa Waltz, Cancer Survivor
WHAT:  Address Medical Marijuana Program's short-comings  
WHEN: Thursday March 21, 12:00pm
WHERE: Room 15, State House Annex. Trenton, NJ
WHY:  Sick patients suffer needlessly as New Jersey's Program continues to languish

A coalition of lawmakers, physicians and patient advocates are demanding prompt improvements to New Jersey's 3-year-old Medical Marijuana law.  They will discuss the importance of this program to the thousands of sick and dying residents in NJ and their caretakers.

"NJ's medical marijuana program is not where it should be three years into its implementation," said Patient/Activist Jay Lassiter who uses medical cannabis to treat symptoms associated with HIV treatment.  "It's over-regulated, over-taxed and inaccessible, especially for terminally ill patients who live in the Southern 2/3 of the state.  It's hard to imagine the State Government running any program so incompetently. New Jersey's Medical Marijuana represents Big Government at its worst."

"The opening of the Greenleaf Compassion Center is a much welcomed sign in this long-sought progress for the patients who have been waiting for this program to become reality,” said the law’s prime sponsor Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer.)  “However, this program will only be successful if all patients throughout our state have reasonable access to this treatment, so it’s crucial to see more progress on the additional five locations that should be opened by law.”

"My philosophy on New Jersey's medical marijuana law is that we should be empowering doctors to treat their patients as they see fit, and not have lawyers or bureaucrats standing in the way.  That why I'm frustrated at the State's implementation of this law, which smacks of big-government overreach,” observed Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris.)  “I concluded long ago that burdensome regulations are bad for business and a threat to our liberties. New Jersey's clumsy, hyper-bureaucratic roll-out of its medical marijuana law only affirms that belief.”

Speakers will be on hand for questions following their brief remarks.

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  ohamkrw@aol.com

CMMNJ, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is a non-profit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the benefits of safe and legal access to medical marijuana.