SENATE EXPECTED TO PASS MEDICAL MARIJUANA RESOLUTION, BUT ADVOCATE
DIANE RIPORTELLA, OF EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, WILL STAY HOME

Diane Riportella did not take pain medication Friday, hoping she
could make it through the day. By evening, however, the pain from not
being able to move was unbearable, the anxiety and fear inconsolable.

Rather than have her husband Paul give her a few drops of
cherry-flavored liquid morphine, the Egg Harbor Township resident
instead asked that he light her pipe with medical grade marijuana.
Almost instantly, she said, the pain dissipated, her anxiety gone and
she felt the will to live come back.

Today, if everything occurs as expected, Diane Riportella will hear
that the state Senate passed a resolution that could be the last
hurdle in legalizing medical marijuana in New Jersey. Unfortunately,
Diane, who is in the final stages of Lou Gehrig's Disease, or
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also called ALS, won't be in Trenton
to watch the vote in person.

Former Gov. Jon Corzine signed legislation into law in January, just
days before he left office, that allowed New Jersey to become the
14th state in the nation to legalize some form of medicinal marijuana
use. But Gov. Chris Christie requested that the program's
implementation be delayed because he felt the law was too lenient and
didn't do enough to prohibit recreational users from accessing pot.

Christie then proposed tight limits on the program, including
reducing the number of dispensaries and growers and placing a tight
limit on the amount of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, that
could be allowed in legal medicinal marijuana.

But the resolution scheduled to be considered today instead says
those limits are not in the spirit of the January law. The same
resolution passed the state Assembly in November, but a Senate vote
was halted after the bill's sponsor, Sen. Nicholas Scutari, D-Union,
Somerset, Middlesex, said he did not have enough votes for it to pass.

Now, Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, Cumberland,
Salem, has said there are enough votes for the measure to pass.
Riportella wanted to be there, but Friday afternoon an adviser with
the advocacy group she works with said testimony would not be heard
and urged her and her husband not to make the journey. Paul
Riportella also said his wife has become too weak for the trip, but
she still would want to go if she thought it would make a difference.

The couple was last in Trenton on Nov. 8, when Diane spoke before two
subcommittees. She told state legislators the difference between
marijuana and morphine. The legal drug, morphine, makes her sleep too
much and dulls her already weak appetite. The marijuana, which she
obtains illegally through an underground network that helps
terminally ill patients obtain cannabis for medicinal use, improves
her breathing, increases her appetite and doesn't force her to sleep
more than she already does. The morphine makes her feel like an
addict, she said, but the marijuana makes her feel like a criminal.

"Morphine, to me, equals death, it equals fading away on to your
death bed," she said Sunday. "When I use the marijuana, I get to be
the person I used to be. It makes me forget, it helps with the pain."

To illustrate the effect, she asked Paul Riportella to light a
mechanical pipe that forces a puff of medical-grade marijuana from
California into her lungs, which have little capacity these days.
Within seconds, her voice became louder, her face brightened and her
breathing improved from short, shallow gulps of air.

Diane was diagnosed with ALS in September 2007. The degenerative
disease causes nerves to stop communicating with each other,
ultimately causing muscles to wither and waste away. Diane's ability
to move gradually weakened, to the point where she no longer can sit
up. Her hands barely move, her fingers no longer have dexterity. The
muscles on her backside have wasted away; she sits on skin and bone.
She can't move, but she feels everything and her mind is completely present.

In just the past few weeks, her breathing weakened further and she
now has trouble swallowing, Paul Riportella said. When the breathing
machine she uses no longer is strong enough, she will die.

Even if the resolution passes today, Diane, who once ran marathons to
raise money for cancer research, likely won't be around to see the
results of her advocacy. The soonest marijuana will be available for
medicinal use is July 2011. She and Paul say they doubt she will be
alive to see that day.

Her advocacy in Trenton was not just about helping other terminally
ill or chronically ill patients obtain the right to use marijuana, she said.

"I'm not just bringing awareness to cannabis, but bringing awareness
to ALS when nobody mentions it. All this time, they mention
everything else but ALS, and ALS is the most horrible disease out there."