MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL PENDING INTRODUCTION

I have been lobbying for medical marijuana rights for seriously ill
and dying New Jersey residents for more than a decade. I began doing
so after seeing how marijuana, not marinol, was able to relieve my
late wife's spasticity and pain. Cheryl died last year after a 32-year
battle with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, but her dream of a
better life for others looks like it may soon come true. A medical
marijuana bill is pending introduction in the New Jersey Assembly.
Although it comes too late for Cheryl, it is not too late for many
others, yet.

Cheryl's neurologist told us in 1992 that he was worried she might not
live long enough to keep her next appointment. Her downward spiral
frightened him enough to prescribe marinol, even though marinol is not
officially on the list of indications for MS and the National MS
Society did not (and still does not) recommend using marinol for
multiple sclerosis. The doctor found marinol had far less dangerous
side effects than other medications he was already prescribing for
Cheryl.

While marinol proved to be somewhat beneficial for Cheryl, she had to
wonder if marijuana would be better. The day we were married in 1984,
she in a wheelchair, I promised Cheryl I would do for her whatever her
arms or legs couldn't, until the day she died. I could not have
imagined then that such a wedding vow would one day include acquiring
a controlled dangerous substance and distributing it to her. However,
I did just that, and we found that marijuana was far superior than
marinol or any other prescription for relieving Cheryl's pain and
spasticity. It also helped put weight on her 86-pound body and helped
her feel good. When Cheryl was without access to edible marijuana,
which was more often than not, marinol was used with less
effectiveness.

Years later Ocean County's First Assistant Prosecutor Terrance Farley
started voicing his opinion that dying patients feeling good was a bad
thing if it came from marijuana use. If Farley was a doctor he
wouldn't have needed me to tell him that feeling good is a benefit to
patients who are fighting any disease, especially multiple sclerosis.
There is a long list of prescriptions that do nothing other than to
help you to feel good, but they are less effective and have more
serious side effects than marijuana.

Prosecutor Farley passed on a chance to increase his medical marijuana
knowledge by attending the Third Clinical Conference on Cannabis
Therapeutics in Virginia last May, with all of his expenses to be paid
by the sponsors. The conference was cosponsored by the University of
Virginia Medical School's Office of Continuing Education. I showed him
a list of speakers that included Dr. Donald Abrams, head of the
hematology and oncology Section, University of California, as well as
Dr. Denis Petro, chief of neurology, Malcolm Grow Medical, Andrews Air
Force Base. Farley could have attended and stated his concerns to
Raphael Mechoulam, Ph.D., Lionel Jacobson Professor of Medicinal
Chemistry, endowed chair, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, or Billy R.
Martin, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicity
at Virginia Commonwealth University.

When confronted with an opportunity to have his own medical marijuana
concerns addressed by real experts, all Farley could respond was "all
of these people are FOR medical marijuana?" Farley wasn't even
interested in talking to Richard Bonnie, professor of law, University
of Virginia School of Law. I can understand why. Credentials such as
these are undoubtedly intimidating to a first assistant prosecutor,
It's safer for him to stick to writing unsubstantiated letters to the
editor.

What Terry Farley seems not to understand is that science does not
discriminate based on the researcher's opinions, pro or con. Science
is science, no matter what you want the outcome to be. The best Farley
can do is to continually come up with new and innovative ways to
distort the message that science brings us. I would have loved to have
seen him try to convolute the findings of medical research to the
researcher's face. By refusing to try to confront those experts whom
he repudiates in public, Farley proves he is not stupid, just ignorant
by choice.

I was on Comcast's "It's Your Call" a few months ago with Terry
Farley. He reminded me on air how he told me four years ago that he
would not charge Cheryl with intent to distribute marijuana, even if
she possessed a half of a pound. While Cheryl appreciated his public
statement, she wondered at what point Farley qualified a person to be
sick enough to receive his special prosecutorial treatment. Cheryl
didn't think it was fair to other medical marijuana patients that Mr.
Farley might not recognize how sick they are, and thereby not give
them the same legal break as her.

Towards the end of the show, the host of "It's Your Call," Lynn Doyle,
asked Farley what harm came to anyone because of Cheryl's illegal use
of medical marijuana. He responded "it depends where it (Cheryl's
marijuana) came from," worrying that proceeds from Cheryl's illegally
purchased marijuana might benefit a Colombian drug cartel, organized
crime, or street gangs. When I told him that I grew it for her he
responded "Where did the seeds come from?" If a dollars worth of seed
money going to a Colombian drug cartel is his real worry, he need not
worry any longer. He soon may also not have to decide which medical
marijuana patients get special prosecutorial treatment from him and
which don't.

Liberal Democratic Assemblyman Reed Gusciora has authored the New
Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, which is pending
introduction in the New Jersey Assembly.

The Gusciora bill would put the New Jersey Department of Health in
charge of patient validation and registration. That would mean using
medical guidelines rather than prosecutorial discretion. Terry Farley
has continually maintained that he doesn't make the law, he just
enforces it. Does that mean we will not be hearing from the Ocean
County Prosecutors Office, through Terry Farley, about the merits of
this legislation?

The bill also provides that registered medical marijuana patients will
be able to grow their own marijuana. This will mean no more seed money
going to the drug cartels. Whew!

Most importantly, the Gusciora bill will help doctors care for
seriously ill and dying New Jersey patients and it will ease the
burden of their loved ones. Just don't tell Terry Farley that it might
help dying patients feel good, or he will accuse them of simply
wanting to get high. Cheryl was insulted to the point of tears by
Terry Farley's callous statements about her and medical marijuana.
It's time that the Ocean County Prosecutors Office realizes that their
spokesman is bad medicine and that it's time to protect medical
marijuana patients.

Text of New Jersey's first ever medical marijuana bill and how you can
help make it happen can be found at www.cherylheart.org

Jim Miller

Silverton