CMMNJ

New Jersey Medical Marijuana Patients Fight in Court

By: Ken Wolski, RN, MPA
Executive Director, Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey, Inc. www.cmmnj.org

November 4, 2011

Three court cases in New Jersey are pitting medical marijuana patients against the criminal justice system:

· John Wilson, a multiple sclerosis (MS) patient, is appealing his recent marijuana conviction to the New Jersey Supreme Court;

· Ed Forchion (NJWeedman) is counting on “jury nullification” in his upcoming trial for distribution of a pound of marijuana; and,

· Colleen Begley’s lawyers are challenging the constitutionality of the state’s marijuana laws in her upcoming trial.

The stakes are high. The three face a total of 25 years in prison and all have turned down plea bargains for significantly less time.

Wilson was arrested in August 2008 for growing 17 marijuana plants that he used to treat his MS. He was charged with “manufacturing” marijuana and he faced 20 years in prison. The trial judge would not allow Wilson to testify to the jury that he had MS and that his marijuana was for his personal use, to treat his disease. Supporters held a series of demonstrations outside the courthouse during the trial to protest the judge’s decision to remove Wilson’s only defense. The jury acquitted Wilson of the most serious charge, but convicted him of a lesser offense. The judge sentenced him to five years in prison. An appellate court ruled that the judge was correct—there was no “personal use” exemption for the crime of growing over ten marijuana plants in New Jersey, so Wilson’s MS was irrelevant. Now the state Supreme Court will determine if compassionate justice is possible in New Jersey. It is not certain when, or even if, the Court will hear the case.

Marijuana activist Ed Forchion (NJWeedman) was arrested in April 2010 when a State Trooper found him driving a car that allegedly had a pound of marijuana in it. Forchion faces up to ten years in a New Jersey prison for this. Forchion is a card-carrying medical marijuana patient from California. He has the legal right to use and possess marijuana in California, due to a painful tumor growing out of a bone near his knee. But New Jersey’s restrictive medical marijuana law does not recognize ID cards from out-of-state. The Medicinal Marijuana Program is not even up and running here despite going into effect in October 2010. The judge has ruled on pre-trial motions that Forchion will not be allowed to tell the jury about the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. Forchion wanted to try to convince the jurors that the law is wrong. The judge rejected that argument, but then granted Forchion a six-month delay in the trial in order to have surgery on the bone tumors. Supporters plan to demonstrate on April 10, 2012 outside Superior Court of Burlington County when the trial is scheduled to resume. Ed Hannaman, a Board member of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana—New Jersey said, “The State of New Jersey must give full faith and credit to the laws of other states, as well as to the diagnoses and treatment plans of licensed physicians from other states.”

In February 2011 Colleen Begley was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Begley faces over a decade in a New Jersey prison. Begley currently has a legal prescription for Marinol, which is a synthetic version of one of the components of marijuana, THC. She also has a medical marijuana ID card from California. Begley’s lawyers are arguing in legal briefs that her indictment must be dismissed because the categorization of marijuana as a Schedule I substance is a violation of the due process of law protection in the New Jersey Constitution. “Defendant Begley is caught in the middle of the state’s transition between attempting to regulate illicit marijuana use and medical marijuana use,” her lawyer Daniel Rosenberg said in a brief submitted to the court. New Jersey’s Compassionate Use Act found and declared that marijuana has medical uses. However, the criminal code has never “been amended to reflect the State’s revised view of the use and dangers of marijuana” Rosenberg argues. Title 24 of the NJ Statutes defines marijuana as a Schedule I drug. Drugs in this schedule have “no accepted medical use in treatment in the U.S.”

New Jersey will soon have a system of safe and legal distribution of medical marijuana to qualified patients here. The state has awarded permits to six non-profit organizations to open medical marijuana dispensaries—Alternative Treatment Centers. Meanwhile, legitimate patients are threatened with long prison terms for using the same medicine that will soon be legally available to them.