N.J. PREPARES FOR MEDICAL POT

The Situation Is Similar to That for Alcohol at the End of Prohibition.

CHRIS CHRISTIE wants to delay the start of New Jersey's medical
marijuana program for as long as a year.

The law authorizing it, signed by predecessor Jon Corzine in January,
was supposed to take effect in July.

The new governor says he needs more time to make sure the program
will work. Given the circumstances, I think he should be accommodated.

New Jersey will be the 14th state to legalize marijuana for medical
purposes, but it will be unique. Patients will not be permitted to
grow their own pot, for one thing. They will have to buy it from one
of just six authorized non-profit dispensaries, two in North Jersey,
two in Central Jersey and two in South Jersey.

The purchase limit will be 2 ounces a month, compared to an ounce in
Alaska, Montana and Nevada, and 24 ounces in Oregon and Washington.

Patients' rights groups say 2 ounces a month isn't enough for
severely disabled people. They may be right. The limit can be raised
later if experience warrants change.

Examples

The state Department of Health and Senior Services, the agency that
must develop regulations, is busy investigating what other states are
doing, trying to strike a balance for New Jersey between assuring
access for qualified patients and assuring the integrity of the program.

Bear in mind that the products to be distributed are forbidden under
federal law. State law varies. The situation is similar to that for
alcohol at the end of Prohibition.

Regulation of newly legal liquor, wine and beer was left then pretty
much to the states, which established various distribution systems.
By and large, the system that evolved works well.

When Christie was campaigning for election last year, he said that
the then-pending Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana bill might
encourage recreational drug use. He cited the experience in
California, where such vaguely defined ailments as anxiety and
chronic pain qualified for marijuana treatment.

However, that loophole was closed in the New Jersey bill. It
authorized physicians to approve marijuana for severe pain caused by
cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Lou Gehrig's disease,
muscular dystrophy and any condition in which life expectancy is less
than a year.

California also permitted too many dispensaries to open, seemingly
one on every street corner. New Jersey, with only six, won't have
that problem, either.

Switch

Christie's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, announced two weeks ago that
the governor had changed his mind, that he now thinks the law as
enacted is "very good."

Former Assemblyman John Rooney, a Bergen County Republican, had
questioned whether marijuana was medically needed, suggesting that
new, legal pain-relief medications would suffice, without all the
hassle. Patients' rights groups disagreed. Marijuana works when
nothing else will, they say.

The prime sponsor, Democratic Sen. Nicholas Scutari of Union County,
has accused the governor of dragging his feet. True, the bill became
law the day before Christie took office, and he had a lot of other
things on his mind then. But that still left five months for him to
get his act together, Scutari said.

Well, the experience in California, Colorado and several other states
indicates that haste can cause problems.

In Denver alone, for example, with a population of 600,000, some 279
stores that were vacant a year ago are now dispensing marijuana for
medical problems. That works out to one pot shop for every 2,150 residents.

It's hard to believe there can be that many severely disabled people
in the city, for whom all other medications won't work. But it is not
hard to believe that all those stores are selling marijuana.

For New Jersey, the best course is to take things one step at a time.