Madison NORML

The "Commando Squad" on the State St. steps of the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, WI, on Sunday, October 8, 2006, before speaking as part of the 36th Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival. Photo courtesy of Carissa.

Source: Asbury Park Press
Pubdate: 14 December 2006
Author: Jim Miller

REOPEN BILLS ON MARIJUANA

The Dec. 1 article "Advocates to launch new push for needle exchange program" exemplified how concerns about drug abuse can cast too wide of a net. Caught in that net are those suffering from HIV and AIDS who became infected without taking illegal drugs. Many such victims' disease had a dirty needle in the chain of infection, where a clean needle could have broken that chain.

Sadly, as some of those sufferers progress and near the end of their lives, they become affected by a wasting syndrome, where even preparing food will make you extremely nauseous. The result is inability to keep food down, leaving the body emaciated and vulnerable. For many, marijuana would quell that nausea and improve their quality of life.

Most of us just don't know what it's like to be that sick forever. The Drug Policy Alliance is leading the effort at passing a needle exchange law in New Jersey. That same group commissioned a poll that found 86 percent of New Jersey residents support medical marijuana. On behalf of my late wife, thanks for your support. Cheryl spent the last decade of her life telling everyone how marijuana relieved her multiple sclerosis spasticity and pain. After spending the 1990s fighting for medical marijuana legislation, she spent the last year of her life wondering why her "supporters" did so little to help her.

My hero went so far as to leave us with her answer to detractors who still say medical marijuana isn't necessary because there are legal alternatives. You can hear Cheryl's reply by going to cherylheart.org and clicking on "Cheryl's cry of pain." click here

To the Drug Policy Alliance's reported 1,250 New Jersey members, it's time to step up and finish what Cheryl began. Medical marijuana bills are now stalled in the state Senate and Assembly health committees and need your help. You know what to do. Now do it.

Jim Miller

TOMS RIVER

My comments follow. -- GS

Despite a strong start last summer, New Jersey's medical cannabis bill has not yet had hearings that were promised for the fall of 2006. So far, medical marijuana in NJ has taken a back seat to needle exchange, and New Jersey patients continue to suffer because of these unnecessary delays. With all due respect to needle exchange, it does not have the kind of popular support -- 86% -- that DPA's poll found for medical cannabis in NJ.

Now that needle exchange legislation is on NJ Gov. Corzine's desk for his signature, it remains to be seen whether medical cannabis will overcome its stepchild status and get passed in New Jersey this session. Jim Miller reports the DPA-NJ is not responding to his requests for information. Why DPA's New Jersey office has no relationship with Jim Miller, who with his late wife Cheryl, worked tirelessly for medical cannabis in NJ all through the 1990's up to Cheryl's death in 2003, and continues his advocacy today, is a question someone should ask them. You'll find no mention of Cheryl on DPA's website click here, despite the fact a DPA grant was crucial for the success of Cheryl's memorial click here.

With needle exchange finally settled, hopefully, the DPA will now redouble their efforts to pass medical cannabis in NJ and will use their influence as skillfully as they did in gaining passage for needle exchange to gain passage of legislation protecting NJ patients who use cannabis this session. Another suggestion would be to stop ignoring the existence of Cheryl Miller. The fact that there is mmj legislation in both houses in New Jersey is a testament to the dozen plus years Cheryl, paralyzed from the neck down by MS, laid the groundwork that made these bills introduction possible in the first place.