IT'S TIME TO APPROVE MEDICAL MARIJUANA

State lawmakers should pass bill whose time has come.

With the state Legislature back in session following elections, a
variety of bills are up for consideration. One that we think ought to
be afforded priority status would allow patients suffering from
debilitating, painful ailments to use medical marijuana without the
fear of being arrested.

Thirteen states allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. It's
value as a pain-reliever has been clearly established. Hundreds of
thousands of people suffering from a wide range of diseases,
everything from AIDS and cancer to glaucoma, swear by marijuana, that
it relieves constant pain, makes nausea go away, prevents seizures and
helps clear up cloudy vision.

Understanding this, the Obama administration recently changed
Department of Justice guidelines. Federal prosecutors will no longer
go after the use and distribution of marijuana for medical purposes in
states where it has been legalized.

This was the right thing to do. The inconsistency of missions between
local and state law enforcement and federal agencies such as the Drug
Enforcement Administration has been a problem for years. It does no
one good to have one set of authorities saying something is legal and
another showing up at people's homes, ripping out marijuana plants and
arresting them.

People who are suffering, many of them from sicknesses that will
ultimately kill them, deserve to live in peace, and without fear of
arrest and prosecution just for trying to relieve their suffering. If
marijuana is what eases their pain, the government should not deny
them that elixir.

Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine has said he'll sign a medical marijuana
law. Republican Gov.-elect Chris Christie, a former federal
prosecutor, has even said he supports the legalization of marijuana
for medical use in principle, although he would prefer restrictions
beyond those written into the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical
Marijuana Act.

The act would do as other states have done -- establish a registry for
medical marijuana users and verify their qualifying medical conditions
through medical records or a written note from a doctor. Users would
be issued a state identification card that would allow them to possess
no more than six marijuana plants and one ounce of usable marijuana.
The law would also allow for the Department of Health and Human
Services to license medical marijuana dispensers -- small businesses
where the plant could be grown and sold to patients with valid medical
marijuana cards.

While there are of course concerns about legalized medical marijuana
perhaps leading to confusion about the laws regarding recreational use
of this drug, we think those concerns are outweighed by the need to
clear up the law for those who have real medical needs. People
suffering from debilitating, painful conditions in this state deserve
the same rights afforded to those in other states and other countries,
where medical marijuana is legal and is regulated.

There is a legitimate war on drugs that we must fight, but using
marijuana for legitimate medicinal purposes is not a battlefront in
that war.