LAWSUIT BREWING OVER N.J. MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM

TRENTON - Prominent defense attorney William Buckman, well known for
the State Police racial profiling case in the 1990s, is prepping a
civil lawsuit against the state health department for delaying New
Jersey's medical marijuana program.

Buckman will co-counsel the litigation along with Anne Davis, the
director of the New Jersey chapter of the National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

The announcement came today during a noon press conference on the
Statehouse steps in Trenton attended by a small group of patients,
advocates and leaders of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New
Jersey. The event was called to commemorate the two-year anniversary
of Gov. Jon Corzine's signing of the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.

The program has largely languished with not one of the state's six
planned medical marijuana centers being anywhere close to opening.

Buckman said he hopes the "strategy of litigation" will put an end to
the administration's "foot dragging."