Senate shoots down Christie's disruptive medi-pot rules

by: Rosi Efthim

Mon Dec 13, 2010 at 04:47:29 PM EST

The New Jersey Senate, like the NJ Assembly before it, has sided with ill and suffering New Jerseyans to protect them from an ideologue governor. Today, the full Senate voted to reject Gov. Christie's unnecessarily restrictive rules on NJ's already-conservative medical marijuana law. Christie's going to have to rethink and rewrite how the state will distribute marijuana intended for sick people. He'd better get moving.

Governor Christie's wasting sick people's time. Maybe he should make one less cute video of himself and spend the time working on sensible regulations, and get this done. He's governor of all of New Jersey, not just the people who agree with him, and he is charged to do his job with all New Jersey's laws, not just the ones he likes.

Rosi Efthim :: Senate shoots down Christie's disruptive medi-pot rules

The Senate vote was 22-16. Senate President Steve Sweeney signaled before the weekend the votes were there and accused Christie of using the regulatory process to undermine a law he doesn't like. The Assembly already voted to reject the governor's regulations. After that vote, Asm Reed Gusciora negotiated a private deal with the governor that upped the number of distribution centers around the state, but kept the potency of the pot capped at the level Christie wanted. That potency is the level of the psychotropic chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). That's what makes the pot work for sick people and Christie's restrictions would put NJ's legal pot way under the THC level available in street pot, defeating the purpose of the law, and possibly driving some sick people underground again. Sponsor Nick Scutari was left out of the deal between Christie and Gusciora, which allowed Christie to chalk that decision up to Scutari's being "uncooperative" and Gusciora's decision to privately negotiate with Christie may have contributed to driving a wedge between them on this issue. But in the end it wasn't enough to prevent the legislative uprising that now fully rejects Christie's using his power to interfere with the law's intent. The resolutions passed in both houses now overturn the Christie administration's regulatory interpretation of the law.

It should be pretty simple stuff. We know marijuana at a decent THC level can make life more bearable and more comfortable for some people whose illness leaves them in pain. We've already passed the law. We need a plan to grow it, and to distribute it that isn't so limited or convoluted to make it harder or impossible for sick people to get.