CMMNJ Minutes for December 12, 2017 Meeting

Monthly Public Meeting Minutes
December 12, 2017

November 2017 minutes approved. Discussion:

Governor-elect Phil Murphy reaffirms plans to legalize marijuana in the first 100 days of 2018! Who is contacting whom about advances for patient access, decriminalization, expungement, etc? Jim Miller is working with Bill Caruso and Jim is willing to accompany any patient in legislative meetings; Ken is working with Doctors for Cannabis Regulation on proposed legislative and regulatory language; Peter & Bob Kane are working with S. Jersey legislators; patients/advocates are urged to contact individual legislators to tell them what we want.

Gov. Christie finishes his second term at noon on January 16, 2018.

CMMNJ held a Press Conference in the State House Annex on 12/7/17 where patients and advocates explained the need for home cultivation—keeps it affordable; guarantees strain specific availability, etc.

NJ’s legalization bill (S3195): “Friends of CMMNJ” letter template in support of home cultivation, addressing concerns. Expect marijuana use uptick of 3% with new law; 97% of current marijuana users will just change vendors from illegal market to legal market. Teen use down in legal states.

The Medicinal Marijuana Program (MMP) Review Panel gave final approval to 43 petitions to add conditions (chronic pain, anxiety, migraines, and Tourette’s syndrome) to the MMP on 10/25/17. Now the DOH commissioner has 180 days to act. CUMMA amendments recommended. LTEs urged.

Marijuana Justice Act of 2017 (S1689): Congressional co-sponsors sought for Sen. Cory Booker’s federal bill. Take action: Capwiz from DPA and NORML.

Final 2017 Statehouse Podcast (100th) concluded with Thanksgiving Day lunch/clothing giveaway outside the Annex. Wayne Burrini (http://www.burrinis.com/) generously donated many delicious food items. Other advocates and patients donated food and clothing. Jim Miller and Lefty Grimes recognized for their heroic efforts in completing 100 podcasts outside the NJ Statehouse in all kinds of weather.

Political Prisoner/Veteran Ed (NJWeedman) Forchion remains in jail awaiting trial on hung jury charge.

Upcoming Events:
“CMMNJ TV” taping at Princeton TV studio, January 2018.
Patients Out of Time conference, Jersey City, NJ, May 10 – 12, 2018.
Garden State Cannabis Consultants, LLC (Nick & Leo) buying a video switcher to produce more videos.

Recent Events:
5th year anniversary of medical marijuana availability in NJ—12/6/17.
Ken spoke at "Medical Cannabis Conference," Montego Bay Jamaica, Nov. 10 -15, 2017, Atecam.com & "Medical Marijuana: There are big benefits for seniors;" at the Plainsboro Senior Center, 12/8/17.

Treasury report: Checking: $3264; PayPal: $3292. Multicolored hemp wristbands available.

2018 CMMNJ meetings were approved for the 2nd Tuesday of each month in 2018 from 7 - 9 PM at the Lawrence Twp. Library, 2751 Brunswick Pike, Lawrence Twp., 08648. All are welcome. (Meeting at the library does not imply Mercer County’s endorsement of our issue.)

More info:
Ken Wolski, RN, MPA (609) 394-2137 ohamkrw@aol.com http://www.cmmnj.org
Facebook:
Friends of CMMNJ: https://www.facebook.com/groups/62462971150/

CMMNJ, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is a non-profit educational organization.

CMMNJ: Proposed improvements for the NJ Medical Marijuana Program

The Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey, Inc. (CMMNJ) has identified issues to make the NJ Medicinal Marijuana Program (MMP) more effective.

The amendments CMMNJ proposes to NJ’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act would bring comprehensive changes to the MMP. These needed improvements to the MMP would:


• Eliminate the physician registry (This is a major stumbling block to an effective program, and it was not called for in the law.  A voluntary registry would be OK to help patients find physicians who will recommend medical marijuana in the event a patient cannot locate a doctor, but any licensed NJ healthcare professional with prescriptive privileges, including Advanced Practice Nurses, should be allowed to recommend marijuana for patients);

• Expand qualifying conditions (Immediately add to the NJ MMP the 43 petitions to add qualifying conditions that were given final approval by the NJ DOH MMP Review Panel);

• Restore home cultivation of 6 (six) plants for qualified patients with a NJ MMP ID card;

• Eliminate the tax on medical marijuana;

• Include explicit employee workplace protections;

• Eliminate background check and fee for caregiver ID card, and reduce ID card fees;

• Eliminate the requirement for psychiatric clearance for minors;

• Require initial and ongoing training for all state, county and local Law Enforcement Officers;

• Eliminate the two ounce/month limit;

• Honor out-of–state ID cards and allow patients to obtain medical marijuana from out-of-state, if necessary;

• Cut permit fees for ATCs and impose no upper limit on the number of ATCs;

• Permit any edible form of marijuana for any age and establish dosage units for all forms (The current prohibition on edibles for adults while allowing them for minors is simply absurd);

• Require testing in licensed laboratories on each batch of marijuana (and on request);

• Forbid the DOH to issue overly restrictive or unduly burdensome regulations for this law;

• Eliminate the need for marijuana to be the last resort drug and establish it as a potential treatment of first resort;

• Broaden the definition of caregiver to allow for more than one child and eliminate the background check for the Primary Caregiver;

• Establish secondary caregivers who will be permitted to assist qualifying patients with the use of medical marijuana at schools, facilities for the developmentally disabled and LTC facilities. These secondary caregivers can be adult employees of the patient’s school or facility, and a person may serve as secondary caregiver to more than one qualifying patient at the school or facility at a time. Eliminate the fees for both caregivers.

(Ideally, nurses at the facilities would automatically qualify as secondary caregivers. Nurses should have no problem administering standardized doses of medical marijuana, as long as the typical prescribing information accompanies the drug—side effects, adverse effects, usual dosage, precautions, drug interactions, etc.  This info is already available. While the federal government still considers marijuana a Schedule I drug, the feds have promised not to interfere with the state medical marijuana programs, and indeed they have not.  Besides, the federal government has no power over the actions of nurses in NJ.  NJ determines what appropriate actions for nurses to perform are.)

• Deschedule marijuana in NJ—remove it entirely as a Scheduled Drug since marijuana will soon be legalized in the state;

• Consider medical marijuana the same as any other medication used at the direction of a physician, and a patient may not be disqualified from receiving any medical care, including an organ transplant, based on the authorized use of medical marijuana;

• Block local governmental units of this state from enacting or enforcing any ordinance or other local law or regulation conflicting with, or preempted by, any provision of this law;

• Establish no upper limits on the number of ATCs in the state;

• Get the Board of Medical Examiners (BME) actively involved in educating physicians about the Endocannabinoid System and advising physicians of the availability of the standardized dosage unit information;

(The BME should insist that every physician in the state be required to take 1 – 3 hours of Continuing Medical Education on the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) as a condition for continued licensure in the state.  The ECS is an important emerging science, developed within the last 25 years, that explains how marijuana works in the human body and how it can be effective for so many diverse diseases, symptoms and conditions.  Even today, the ECS is only mentioned in about 13% of medical schools, despite its many implications for healthcare. Moreover, the DOH has an MMP which many physicians are completely ignorant of, and have no incentive to learn about.  These physicians refuse appropriate care to qualified patients in NJ, and often belittle and insult attempts by patients to receive this care.)

• Complete prescribing information, developed by the NJ DOH, should be available to NJ physicians when standardized doses of edible marijuana are available (currently lozenges and oils are available at one of the ATCs in NJ);

• Expand the time period that physicians may provide written instructions for to 60 days, which may include multiple written instructions up to 6 months.

(Once a patient with a chronic condition is established on medical marijuana, it should not be necessary to be routinely seen more frequently than this.)

• Allow edible medical marijuana products for qualified patients in all state institutions including psychiatric hospitals and state prisons.


Ken Wolski, RN, MPA

Executive Director

Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey, Inc.

609.394.2137

www.cmmnj.org

December 12, 2017

NJ Medical Marijuana Patients To Governor-elect Murphy: We Need Home Cultivation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Coalition of Medical Marijuana, New Jersey (CMMNJ)Contact: Peter Rosenfeld ----  jprosenfeldyahoo.com

December 7, 2017 at 10:00AM - Press Conference in NJ State Capitol Building Annex, Room 9.




New Jersey Medical Marijuana Patients To Governor-elect Murphy: We Need Home Cultivation 

Trenton: Registered medical marijuana patients in New Jersey will gather at the State Capitol Building Annex, Room 9 on December 7th at 10:00 a.m. for a press conference calling on legislators and Governor-elect Phil Murphy to allow home cultivation of cannabis. 

Advocates will highlight the stories of patients serving prison time for a handful of plants and will have a model of a small home medical marijuana grow on display. 

Peter Rosenfeld, a board member of the Coalition of Medical Marijuana New Jersey (CMMNJ), pointed out that caregivers and patients were expecting home gardens until the provision was removed in 2009 from the Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana Act. Almost a decade later and the promises of a robust medical marijuana program have been broken.

“Patients are still being arrested or moving away due to the problems in the state's program,” says Rosenfeld, “The price is unaffordable to many, and the dispensaries have difficulty in staying stocked with the strains that patients need.”

The demonstration of a typical home cultivation setup will include 2-3 flowering plants, LED lights and 2-3 immature plants. This style of indoor garden will cost much less than what a patient currently spends on an ounce of dried flower from the state dispensaries. 

Ken Wolski RN, Executive Director of CMMNJ, who will be speaking at the press briefing said, “Home cultivation empowers patients to take charge of their own healthcare, to grow their own medicine for pennies and to choose the specific strains that best helps their medical conditions.”

Rosenfeld added, “As New Jersey moves on to full legalization of marijuana we want legislators and Governor-elect Murphy to consider the needs of our state's medical marijuana patients.” 

CMMNJ will have copies of model legislation that contains detailed improvements. CMMNJ also extends an open invitation to Governor-elect Murphy to attend our next meeting in Lawrenceville.

Contact: Peter Rosenfeld  jprosenfeldyahoo.com

CMMNJ Meeting Agenda for December 12, 2017

Monthly Public Meeting Agenda 
Lawrence Twp. Library, Rm. #1 
Tuesday, December 12, 2017 
7:00 PM -- 9:00 PM

Approve November 2017 minutes. Discuss:

Governor-elect Phil Murphy reaffirms plans to legalize marijuana in the first 100 days of 2018! Who is contacting whom in the new Administration about moving forward with advances for patient access and decriminalization/expungement? Gov. Christie finishes his second term at noon on Jan. 16.
NJ’s legalization bill (S3195): Facebook’s “Friends of CMMNJ” letter template in support of home cultivation, addressing concerns. Also, Press Conference at Artworks, Trenton, 12/7/17 at 4:00 pm.

The Medicinal Marijuana Program (MMP) Review Panel gave final approval to 43 petitions to add conditions (chronic pain, anxiety, migraines, and Tourette’s syndrome) to the MMP on 10/25/17. Now the DOH commissioner has 180 days to follow those recommendations. CUMMA amendments?

Marijuana Justice Act of 2017 (S1689): Congressional co-sponsors sought for Sen. Cory Booker’s federal bill. Take action: Capwiz from DPA and NORML.

Final 2017 Statehouse Podcast (100th) concluded with Thanksgiving Day lunch outside the Annex.

Political Prisoner Ed (NJWeedman) Forchion remains in jail awaiting retrial on hung jury charge.

Upcoming Events:
“CMMNJ TV” taping, Princeton TV studio, 1/18.
Patients Out of Time conference, Jersey City, NJ, May 10 – 12, 2018.
Recent Events: 5th year anniversary of medical marijuana availability in NJ—12/6/17.
Medical Cannabis Conference, Montego Bay Jamaica, Nov. 10 -15, 2017. Atecam.com

Treasury report: Checking: $3264; PayPal: $3292.

CMMNJ's meetings are the 2nd Tuesday of each month from 7 - 9 PM at the Lawrence Twp. Library, 2751 Brunswick Pike, Lawrence Twp., 08648. All are welcome. (Meeting at the library does not imply Mercer County’s endorsement of our issue.)

More info: Ken Wolski, RN, MPA (609) 394-2137 ohamkrw@aol.com http://www.cmmnj.org
Facebook: Friends of CMMNJ: https://www.facebook.com/groups/62462971150/

CMMNJ, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is a non-profit educational organization.

Monthly Public Meeting Minutes 
November 14, 2017

3 Board members in attendance- 7 others.  Oct. 2017 minutes approved.

All Items on Agenda covered-Notes of discussions below.

Election- Despite new Gov’s intent to sign a legalization Bill quickly, it is doubtful that legal MJ will be available for a year because of details to be worked out in Regs.  However, activists can push for tangential issues that can be immediately implemented such as prohibiting any arrests for use, expunging all use arrests and those for supplying friends (i.e., all those not major dealers).

Also, provision must be made to support minority representation in gaining licenses to sell with reduced license fees in minority communities and eliminating any bar due to MJ arrest or those charges related thereto (resisting arrest, etc).

 As part of legalization we can advocate for patient growing for own use and other useful expansions of the CUMMA (my note and eliminating many of the unjust burdens like requiring Dr. registrations-esp with Trump admin.)  On growing we should emphasize it was in the original Bill and unjustly eliminated in secret.

Review Panel Approvals- Main point is that we know Gov. Christie is running out the clock so we need to quickly contact new Health Commissioner to immediately sign approval-we have contacts (e.g. Bill Caruso) to get us an inside track. I recommended contacting the DOH transition team. There is no need to delay for the full 180 days. This can be done the first day the new Commissioner takes over if we do advance planning.

Appellate Court action – despite the euphoria I pointed out that the court did not mandate a change only instructed the Director that he had the ability and he should review his position. This is wasted on a Christie appointee.  Again-we need to have the new Admin take Immediate action on this as a priority -even if just to help patients with issues such as use on school grounds.

Podcast last one for this year (and the 100th) is on Thanksgiving and it will provide food. Hoping for media coverage and food donations.
Brunch on Nov 18th at Studio B in Trenton (formerly Prayer Brunch-and no Al Sharpton) Cost is $25. There are speakers. 
Jason has contacts in the Senate majority office we can use.  Jim reported that Scutari dropped charges against Lefty Grimes in Linden and he and Joanne will do a Bergen County forum on Nov. 16th. 

Next Meeting should specify who is contacting whom in the new Admin about moving forward with advances for patient access and discuss specifics.
Treasury report: Checking: $3434; PayPal: $3122.

More info: Ken Wolski, RN, MPA (609) 394-2137 ohamkrw@aol.com http://www.cmmnj.org

CMMNJ, a 501(c)(3) public charity, is a non-profit educational organization.

Recent Media Coverage and Blogs:


With Phil Murphy's win, it's 'full steam ahead' for legal marijuana
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/11/hold_murphys_victory_is_the_first_step_toward_a_ma.html

Supporters Say Recreational Marijuana Could Be Legal In New Jersey By Next Summer Thanks To Murphy Win
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/11/08/supporters-say-recreational-marijuana-could-be-legal-in-new-jersey-by-next-summer/

Marijuana legalization gets support with Murphy's win
http://newjersey.news12.com/story/36798931/marijuana-legalization-gets-support-with-murphys-win

Bamboozled: Could these medical marijuana scams come to N.J.? You bet
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2017/11/bamboozled_could_these_medical_marijuana_scams_com.html

Letter: Countering Ocean City Prosecutor's Stance On Marijuana
https://patch.com/new-jersey/oceancity/letter-countering-ocean-city-prosecutors-stance-marijuana

Princeton resident is new head New Jersey Cannabis Industry Association board
https://planetprinceton.com/2017/11/16/princeton-resident-is-new-head-new-jersey-cannabis-industry-association-board/

Time to reclassify N.J.'s relationship with marijuana
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/time-to-reclassify-n-j-s-relationship-with-marijuana/article_21a11f52-5558-5095-a2fa-07e680541983.html

Amid talk of legalizing marijuana, one expert says 'slow down'
http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/paramus/2017/11/16/amid-push-legal-marijuana-in-one-expert-says-slow-down/868289001/

ASA: Medical Cannabis Access for Pain Treatment
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/americansforsafeaccess/pages/8900/attachments/original/1470426683/Medical_Cannabis_Access_for_Pain_Treatment-_A_Viable_Strategy_to_Address_the_Opiod_Crisis_8-5-16__3_49.pdf?1470426683

Can Marijuana Alleviate the Opioid Crisis?
The federal government should stop blocking research into the drug’s medical potential.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-marijuana-alleviate-the-opioid-crisis-1511104543#comments_sector

Murphy's win boosts prospects for legal marijuana in New Jersey
http://www.northjersey.com/story/news/new-jersey/2017/11/24/marijuana-could-coming-new-jersey/849505001/

High time to legalize recreational marijuana in NJ
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2017/11/cannabis-article

Smell of new business in the weed industry luring N.J. lawyers
http://www.nj.com/marijuana/2017/12/lawyers_prepare_for_business_boom_if_weed_is_legal.html

Legalize weed? We should not empower an industry that profits from addiction | Opinion
http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/12/legalize_weed_we_should_not_empower_an_industry_that_profits_from_addiction_opinion.html

Ricardo Rivera of Tuffysfght.com
https://vimeo.com/245390762?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=28749

New Jersey Should Legalize Marijuana
https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/drug-law-reform/new-jersey-should-legalize-marijuana

Will you be able to grow weed at home? Here's what we know about the N.J. pot bill
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/11/nj_marijuana_bill_could_soon_see_these_changes.html

Incoming NJ Gov. Murphy names head of cannabis trade group as chief of staff
http://www.thecannabist.co/2017/11/28/new-jersey-murphy-pete-cammarano/93376/

Murphy insists NJ will make marijuana legal — ‘We want to get this right’
http://nj1015.com/murphy-insists-nj-will-make-marijuana-legal-we-want-to-get-this-right/?trackback=tsmclip

NJ legal marijuana may also mean car insurance gets high
http://www.app.com/story/news/local/new-jersey/2017/11/27/nj-legal-marijuana-may-also-mean-car-insurance-gets-high/897275001/

CMMNJ / Sativa Cross FINALE! Feeding Trenton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb2nh5rV3gU&feature=share

Rice on Marijuana Legalization: Proceed With Caution
http://www.njsendems.org/rice-on-marijuana-legalization-proceed-with-caution/

NJ panel OKs marijuana for more conditions
https://cmmnj.blogspot.com/2017/11/nj-panel-oks-marijuana-for-more.html


Medical marijuana patients fight stigma to find relief
http://www.burlingtoncountytimes.com/7b3d0ba8-7152-11e7-ae8b-d7baa80e197f.html

Legalized Recreational Marjuana In NJ Might Not Be Available Soon
http://wbgo.org/post/legalized-recreational-marjuana-nj-might-not-be-available-soon#stream/0

Sativa Cross .com Ignorance Is No Excuse Potcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvq5nIRYmc&feature=youtu.be

CMMNJ PSA
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B72GooQ_L415SUhYcXBmS2xfckU/view?ts=59e9f6c7