BY MICHAEL HAYNE

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OPINON

A couple years after New Jersey joined 18 states in allowing medical marijuana, Governor Christie has been trying to severely weaken if not downright nullify the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, a final act of power by outgoing Governor Corzine. Governor Christie has created bureaucratic hurdles that have brought medical marijuana to its very knees, begging for mercy. The reason is quite simple: Christie has been running for president since 2012 and he does whatever is necessary to further his own ambitions. Now, one would think that conservatives would cherish medical marijuana since it is a state's rights issue and all about personal liberty, but one would also think that conservatives knew what rape means. Crazy is the new moderately intelligent in the GOP as the crazies took over the asylum in 2010. The very few moderate and reasonable Republicans left must kowtow to the mouth-foaming Teabaggers if they wish to survive.

Richard Caporusso, a suffering patient who grew irate and frustrated over the inexpeditiousness of medical marijuana in New Jersey versus the relative ease in other states that allow it, recently had a lawsuit heard by a three-judge panel sitting in Mount Holly. The suit alleges that Gov. Chris Christie’s administration has sabotaged New Jersey’s medical marijuana program with protracted delays and missed reports. Although a dispensary is set to open in Egg Harbor Twp. this October, Caporusso said he has to travel 166 miles to the only dispensary in Montclair to fill his prescription because the state has deliberately been slow in green lighting others.

From abandoning conservative principles with a costly special election to ensuring that a separate election take place so as to keep the popular Cory Booker off the ballot for his own reelection, Christie is all about Christie. New Jersey voters finally seem to agree that Christie is all about political ambition, and in order to satisfy that ambition Christie will need all the big money he can get from the pharmaceutical industry ((big man, big money, big pharm)--a known enemy of marijuana as an alternative treatment. Christie has shown his love for the pharmaceutical industry in the past and it will only accelerate as he waddles to the 2016 Presidential Primary.