COMMON SENSE LAW UNDER WAY

We're glad to see the state's Compassionate Use Marijuana Act finally
taking hold with the designation of six nonprofits to grow and sell
what will now be a prescription medicine for patients in debilitating
pain.

A board member of one of the nonprofits, based in Princeton, spoke
with Times Staff Writer Meir Rinde last week. What William Thomas of
the Compassionate Care Foundation said should settle any lingering
qualms there might be about the no-nonsense system in place to
safeguard growing and distribution of the drug.

The law requires organizations tapped by the state to make three
products: a topical lotion, a lozenge and an "organic product," which
is heated and inhaled as water vapor. And while the foundation is
based in Princeton, the marijuana will be grown in a highly secure and
sterile manufacturing environment.

"We treat this as a pharmaceutical manufacturing process," Mr. Thomas
said. "It's not agriculture. It's very much akin to penicillin or aspirin."

The foundation is looking at a site in Bellmawr in Camden County to
grow and dispense the marijuana. That may change, depending on zoning
laws and the community's input. That's as it should be, of course. No
alternative treatment center or ATC should be forced on a community;
as long as the centers are within reasonable reach of patients in
South, Central or North Jersey, their location will be a local decision.

Communities, however, should not overlook a positive economic impact.
Mr. Thomas, for example, anticipates the Compassionate Care Foundation
ATC will generate 140 jobs.

As the state begins to carry out the new law, controversy remains. The
law's Senate sponsors have said they would rather overturn the
proposed rules and start over, delaying the start of the program, than
allow its restrictive regulations to move forward.

Repealing the medical marijuana law and starting over could take
years. That would represent more years of debilitating pain for those
this law was designed to help. Many of them just don't have that time.

It makes more sense to get the growing and distribution centers up and
running. Once the program is operational, lawmakers will have an
opportunity to make their case for fine-tuning the mechanism.

Mr. Thomas described one meeting where the families of those suffering
the chronic pain of cancer said they would send their teenage children
out to buy marijuana as the only effective relief.

"Who knows what they're buying?" he said.

At least New Jersey's fledgling program will begin to offer a better
answer for thousands of patients in daily and agonizing pain.