MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL LANGUISHES

The April 19 article "Study raises questions on safety of pain drugs"
raised a question of its own. I was not surprised to read that doctors are
switching patients to over-the-counter pain relievers, believing them to be
safer than the COX-2 inhibitor drugs that now must carry a warning.

My question concerns the state Health Department's position on medical
marijuana. It states that "it is the position of the Department of Health
that there are acceptable alternatives in medicine for those patients who
would use marijuana as medicine." Apparently that position needs to be
updated to reflect the fact that physicians no longer find many of those
alternatives to marijuana quite so acceptable now.

A bill (S-220) posted in the state Senate Health Committee, the
Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana Act, would allow the use of medical
marijuana in New Jersey. A similar bill is being held up in the Assembly
Health Committee. I have been advised not to tell anybody that the author
of that bill, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, is responding to
concerns of Assembly Majority Leader Joseph J. Roberts Jr., D-Camden, and
is holding up his own bill from being posted. Too late now.

A 4-to-1 majority of New Jerseyans say they support medical marijuana, yet
they have failed to do anything to help the sick and dying patients they
profess to support. They can take part by visiting the Web site of an
organization that I helped form two years ago, two months before my wife,
Cheryl, died. The Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey (cmmnj.org)
has made it easy to help those who are too weak to help themselves. Isn't
that what people are supposed to do?

Jim Miller

DOVER TOWNSHIP