MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW READY TO BURN IN NEW JERSEY

This week Gov. Jon Corzine is expected to sign into law a measure
that will allow for the use of marijuana as prescribed by physicians.
It will also give the Garden State a green crop of another kind D
legal weed, making it the 14th state in the nation to legalize the
drug for medicinal purposes.

Does it mean that New Jersey is going to plunge deep into the throes
of reefer madness?

Those who have championed the cause, like Ken Wolski, Chief Executive
Officer of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey, say that's
not likely.

"It is of my professional opinion that marijuana is a safe,
therapeutic agent for a wide variety of symptoms, diseases and
conditions," Wolski said. "No drug is without risks. There is a
slight potential for addiction, but it's certainly less addictive
than many drugs currently prescribed by doctors."

He compared to the addiction factor on the level of that of caffeine.
He claims many times the dangers associated with it are incurred by
naive users.

"No one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana, so in that sense
it's a lot less dangerous than something that's over the counter," Wolski said.

Earlier this month, both the Assembly and the Senate passed the New
Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act with the Assembly
passing the bill 48-14, and the Senate 25-13. Corzine's action this
week would make New Jersey the 14th state to institute similar
measures. Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana,
Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington previously approved legalizing
prescription marijuana.

Under New Jersey's legislation, strict limits would be placed on just
who can possess the previously illegal substance.

Only residents of the state will be permitted to obtain it and only
through one of six "alternative treatment centers." They will have to
secure an ID card issued by the state Department of Health after
being recommended by a physician.

Conditions that make a patient eligible to receive medical marijuana
include HIV/AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, Lou Gehrig's disease and multiple
sclerosis.

State Sen. Stephen Sweeney praised Sen. Nicholas Scutari, the bill's
Senate co-sponsor for what he called "tenacious efforts to have the
bill clear hurdles to make it to Corzine's desk. He lent his name as
well as one of the bill's sponsors. "The important thing is that
people who are suffering will actually be able to get some relief,"
Sweeney said. "It's actually a bill of compassion for people who are
gravely ill or struggling with enormous pain."

"We're very grateful that we got the legislation through," Wolski
said. "It's very important that New Jersey recognizes that marijuana
is medicine. The feds have been denying it for 40 years and has been
denying it to this day."

However, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has a different
take on taking cannabis for health's sake. The DEA's Web site views
marijuana as a "dangerous, addictive drug that poses significant
heath threat to users" and that it "has no medical value that can't
be met more effectively by legal drugs."

Furthermore the DEA claims medical marijuana proponents use the term
as a "red herring in effort to advocate broader legalization of drug use."

Dr. Craig Wax, family practitioner out of Mullica Hill, who also
hosts the weekly medical radio show and Webcast "Your Health
Matters," concurred with a 2008 American College of Physicians report
that advocated rigorous scientific evaluation of the potential
therapeutic benefits of medical marijuana.

"I'm not for the method of smoking any compound or substance as a
medical treatment because the side products when you burn something
in the presence of oxygen are somewhat unpredictable," Wax said.

He added that more than 200 potentially toxic substances like cyanide
and arsenic are released when tobacco is smoked. Plant compounds, he
explained, whether it be marijuana or tobacco can worsen or cause
vascular disease.

For Wax, the question for society is what are acceptable measures to
help with pain relief or reduce symptoms of a chronic health problem.

"I think that it's too risky and not a controlled application of one
medicinal substance. It's tempting to think that something that
people use for illegal recreation would be useful in a medicinal
context, but at what price with all that's known and what's unknown?"
Wax asked.

A bigger question, he agreed, might be the impression its use leaves
on young people.

"At one point in time, someone deemed it should be illegal," Wax said.

Statistically, the percentage of high school seniors who have used
marijuana in their lifetime is on a downward swing. Just a decade ago
nearly half of all seniors said they used the drug.

That number for 2008 was only about 43 percent, according to numbers
from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health conducted by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse.