The “Kind” You Like

It’s all coming back to me now. In my younger days, people used to call really potent marijuana “kind bud.” And the stuff that someone bought quickly on a lark was simply known as “commercial weed” or “schwag.” In the debate over marijuana potency in New Jersey “schwag” has also been referred to as “dirt weed.”

Ok, glad that is clear. The recent agreement between Governor Christie and Democratic Assemblyman Reed Gusciora will keep the THC content in medical marijuana at 10%. “Good stuff” is usually 18% THC, I am told. So that means people who need medicinal marijuana will have to smoke a lot more schwag to reap the benefits of the drug. THC btw, is the psychotropic chemical that gives marijuana it’s kick. That means helping to relieve pain and suffering in chronically ill patients. It is the same ingredient that produces a “high” for college students. That “high” can best be described as euphoria, followed by a deep paranoia in which the smoker is 100% convinced that Federal Agents ( not the local police mind you, but Federal Agents! ) are about to bust in the door and haul you off to jail. That soon morphs into boredom, followed by an overwhelming desire to drink a beer, smoke a cigarette and finally order Dominoes.

Or, you know – so I’ve heard.

But getting back to the issue at hand, if patients are required to smoke a lot – oh wait, they can’t because all recipients of the drug are limited to 2 ounces a month. Hmmmm. So that means, that patients might be smoking and smoking, but not enough to ease their suffering. Critics also say that you don’t want to encourage people to smoke more of anything. Marijuana may not be as bad for your lungs as tobacco, but it’s probably still not something that people should smoke a lot of…if they can avoid it.

Anyway, such are the thoughts of Democrats who feel they may have to go ahead with the Resolution scrapping the Med Marijuana rules anyway since there was no broad agreement on some of these other points. Wait, did I only give you one point? Right. Short term memory loss, dude.

Another issue is that it would still be illegal to distribute the drug in school zones which would render most cities off-limits as distribution centers. That might wind up discriminating against certain individuals who may need or want the marijuana just as much as folks in the suburbs. After all, someone who is ailing often can’t travel that far.

Senator Nick Scutari was noticeably absent at the Gusciora-Christie announcement last Friday. Scutari says he never heard from the Administration about signing onto the agreement. Christie meantime, says he didn’t want to wait around for the Union Dem to play political games. I’m not sure who is right, since I don’t have full access to private phone records and text messages ( although I feel like I have been spending some time looking at those elsewhere lately ).

What is notable is that as of Monday, Gusciora and Scutari still hadn’t spoken after working so closely together to get this bill passed last year.

Whatever. “The Big Lebowski” is coming on in ten minutes and all will be forgotten.

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Incense and Peppermints

So, it has been many years since I have heard people devoting this much time to talking about Marijuana. Of course when I hear it now at the State House it is in a very different context.

What to do about those Med Marijuana Regs. By statute, New Jersey needs to implement the law that passed in the lame-duck session before Christie took office. But it is the Christie Administration that is now charged with building New Jersey’s program.

Advocates for patients and supporters of the bill say the Department of Health and Senior Services has made the regulations too restrictive. For example, by insisting on a low THC content in the drug, forcing Physicians to wait two years before adding new ailments as eligible for treatment and having doctors verify that all other means of treatment have been exhausted before writing a script for medicinal pot. And don’t even get me started on the whole flap about the number of distribution centers ( dude, it’s like totally overwhelming!!! ).

So, clearly there are some who believe this is Christie himself being a bit of a Difficult-A-Saurus Rex ( which is not to be confused with Puff The Magic Dragon. He-he ).

The Dems will pass a resolution putting the regs under review. The Admin then has 30 days to re-write them. If they refuse, the legislature can invalidate the rules. Does anyone see where this is headed? Yep. You guessed it…Court, which probably suits the Christie Administration just fine.

Programming Note: “Incense and Peppermints” is that ridiculous late 60″s song by that even more ridiculously named group “Strawberry Alarm Clock.” Oddly enough, the lead singer, Ed King eventually left the group and joined Lynyrd Skynyrd, which couldn’t more exemplify southern ( non-psychedelic ) 70’s rock. Those crazy musicians!!!

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Medical Marijuana Bill Gets More Restrictive

Toke if ya’ got ’em.

By now we have all heard the debate about the legalization of medical marijuana, so I am not going to re-hash it here ( get it? ‘hash’ hehe ).

Besides, NJ is hardly a pioneer on this. Numerous other states have already gone forward with similar laws and legislation ( 14 to be precise ).

So, here it is in a  nutshell: people with chronic illnesses and painful degenerative diseases say it stimulates appetite ( particularly true for cancer patients undergoing chemo ) and eases pain. Opponents say this is merely a trojan horse to begin  legalizing pot.

Whatever your view, what is happening at the State House on this is worth noting. The full Senate passed a bill last February 22-16. But in the Assembly Health Committee a bunch of amendments were added to make the bill far more restrictive.

In fact one of the bill’s sponsors joked to me that the Senate version is the “Jerry Garcia” version.

To get the bill through committee ( it ultimately cleared 8-1 ), the sponsors had to eliminate a provision that would have allowed patients to grow their own. Now, the drug would only be available through licensed centers. It also limits what diseases it can be prescribed for. Here is the piece that backers of the old bill don’t like. Either we trust doctors to decide what is best for their patients or we don’t, they argue. You don’t try and legislate what constitutes a serious illness.

So now, the Senate will have to re-pass this new version. In another strange bedfellows moment the bill is being sponsored by conservative Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll and liberal Reed Gusciora. I guess it’s a non-partsian issue.

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