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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Backers of New Jersey’s medical marijuana program are wondering whether the state was looking for reasons to continue delaying the program's start.
According to the Asbury Park Press, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is looking for assurances from federal prosecutors that they won’t pursue criminal charges against the program before he signs a state law permitting it.
State Attorney General Paula Dow sent U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder a letter in April asking whether state-licensed pot growers, sellers and employees who will manage the program risk getting arrested under federal laws.
And Christie said his office has written letters to U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman which have yet to be answered. Possession and distribution of marijuana is a federal crime, even though it is available to qualifying patients in many state-run programs.
"What happens if they get arrested and I ordered them to do it? That's wrong," Christie said on call-in program “On the Line,” according to NorthJersey.com.
The executive director of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana for New Jersey, Chris Goldstein, had his own point of view. He said to lehighvalleylive.com, "Gov. Christie is personally holding this law back."
Christie had earlier been accused of trying to delay the start of the medical marijuana law when he created very strict regulations for the program.
Sponsor of the medical marijuana law, Senator Nicholas Scutari told NJ.com, “More than a dozen states operate medical marijuana programs, and no employee acting within state guidelines has ever been prosecuted for carrying out their duties.''
Dow’s letter is being reviewed, and has not yet received a response.
Christie has said he would not have signed the medical marijuana bill if he were governor when it came around. The law had already been signed by former Gov. Jon Corzine.
Ken Wolski, executive director of CMMNJ said, “There can be no doubt that every aspect of New Jersey’s medical marijuana program concerns access to physician-recommended medicine by desperately ill patients. The 110 pages of regulations promulgated by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services to enact the Medicinal Marijuana Program is a monument to overly-cautious bureaucratic detail. No one could possibly confuse it with drug abuse and drug trafficking. The attorney general should instead be insisting that the federal government reschedule marijuana from its absurd Schedule I status.”
Schedule I drugs have no accepted medical uses in the U.S. New Jersey—along with 15 other states and the District of Columbia—acknowledged medical uses for marijuana through legislation. Another dozen states are considering similar legislation. “It is the federal government that is wrong in this, not New Jersey. State officials should not look to the feds for guidance on medical marijuana,” Wolski added.
It is time to "Change the Schedule of Cannabis, Cannabis Laws, and Drug Czar Laws"
Read and Sign the petition at
http://www.change.org/petitions/change-the-schedule-of-cannabis-cannabis-laws-and-drug-czar-laws
After you sign the petition, email your friendlies, share on facebook, or twitter from the petition page. If you have a website grab the widget so your visitors can sign it without leaving your website.
This petition uses laws passed by Congress to point out that by their laws, the laws must change.
It begins -
It is difficult to understand and believe Congress enacted a law requiring a government official to lie and to ignore science and medical studies. This renders the Office unreliable and a fraud. Though 68 - 84 % of this nation, depending on the poll, wants to legalize the medicinal use of cannabis, and science and medical studies have proven the therapeutic benefits and medicinal value of cannabis, we have been forced to live with outdated Draconian laws. It is time to change this.
and continues