SURE, BUT SLOW

It took years of concerted effort to convince New Jersey legislators
to approve the use of marijuana as a medical treatment for
debilitating pain. Yet, since the New Jersey Compassionate Use
Medical Marijuana Act was signed into law early this year, thousands
of state residents whose painful symptoms persist despite
conventional treatment are still waiting.

A recent Newhouse News report mapping the bureaucratic route to
relief for those with multiple sclerosis, cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and
other chronic conditions described a tortuous path.

While a fall harvest of the first crop of marijuana grown by the
state for sale and distribution to registered patients is planned,
the relief may be postponed by a thicket of restrictions mandated by
the nation's most stringent law on medical marijuana use. The
sluggish pace has been further slowed by what appears to be the
reluctance of state officials who have asked to extend the
nine-month start-up period required under the law.

In the next six months, state health officials must decide who
should be permitted to grow the drug and where, how it should be
tested for potency and safety, and in which communities it will be
sold. The health department has informally approached
Rutgers University's School of Environmental and
Biological Sciences to play an unspecified role, but no discussions
have taken place.

Granted, that's a lot to work out. However, because New Jersey will
be the first state to provide medical marijuana through its own
centralized production and distribution system, once the logistics
are established, it should be a much easier system to control than
those in states where users are allowed to grow their own.

Officials will have to devise a system to screen the hundreds of
aspiring marijuana entrepreneurs who have called, looking to break
into an industry that has been thriving in other states. While this
will be new territory for New Jersey to negotiate, it should result
in much needed revenue for the state.

Officials also are leery of running afoul of the federal and state
laws that still recognize marijuana possession and distribution as
crimes. However, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has made it clear
that the federal government is not interested raiding medical
marijuana facilities in states that have deemed them legal, and the
U.S. attorney for New Jersey is similarly disinclined. It doesn't
seem to add up to much of a stumbling block.

Health and Senior Services Commissioner Poonam Alaigh is right to
adhere to the state's "first priority" of creating a structure that
will be the "most restrictive, in the way the law was meant to be."
However, the well-being of those who suffer daily must also be
considered a priority.

Advocates say at least 5,000 New Jerseyans with debilitating
diseases are waiting for the state to implement the new law. One
group predicts that number will eventually top 30,000. They should
not be forced to seek illegal treatment for their inordinate
pain while the legal remedy is so close at hand.