cannabisnews.com: N.J. Sen. Scutari To Schedule Hearing
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N.J. Sen. Scutari To Schedule Hearing
Posted by CN Staff on January 12, 2011 at 13:51:35 PT
By The Associated Press 
Source: Associated Press 
Trenton -- A state senator said he's taking the next step toward voiding Gov. Chris Christie's proposed strict medical marijuana regulations after the Christie administration missed today's deadline to submit a new version of them. A hearing on the issue has been scheduled for Jan. 20 before the state Senate's health committee.That's the next step in a little-used legislative process to force an administration to redo regulations — the nuts-and-bolts of how a law is to be carried out. After the hearing, lawmakers could vote to require the Republican governor's administration to write new rules, said state Sen. Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat from Linden.
The issue is simple: Legislators believe the Christie administration's plan on how to disburse marijuana to patients is so restrictive that it undermines the intent of the law adopted last year to do so.The proposed regulations are the only ones in the nation to limit the potency and variety of pot that's made available to patients. They also require doctors who recommend marijuana to undergo more training.New Jersey became the 14th state to adopt a law allowing patients with some medical conditions to use pot to ease their symptoms. People with glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other conditions say the drug can help relieve pain and nausea.Signing the bill was one of the last acts as governor for Democrat Jon Corzine. A day later, Christie, who upset Corzine in an election the previous year, was sworn in.Christie said he supported the concept of medical marijuana — but not the law that Corzine signed.His critics on the issue say he tried to use the regulations to rewrite the law.Christie says he's just using his authority to fill in blanks left in the law.Last month, Christie struck a deal with Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton who pushed for legal cannabis for patients, to make changes to his regulations. Among them: allowing six establishments to both grow and distribute the drug — as the law called for. Previously, Christie had wanted only two places to be allowed to grow it and four to distribute it.But Scutari, the Legislature's other chief advocate of medical pot, didn't agree to the deal. And 10 days after it was struck, the Senate sided with him and voted to tell the administration that the regulations didn't meet the Legislature's intent.The vote gave the Christie administration 30 days to draft new regulations. Scutari said Christie hasn't complied with that resolution — or even formally introduced the reworked regulations from the deal he struck with Gusciora."He hasn't even done what he said he would do," Scutari said.A spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Senior Services didn't immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Wednesday.Chris Goldstein, a spokesman for the Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey, founded in 2003 to support legalization efforts, said it's frustrating for patients that legal pot isn't available yet to patients who would qualify for it."A year later, we thought we would have the program running, and we don't," he said. "There's not a cannabis plant growing yet."Source: Associated Press (Wire)Published: January 12, 2011Copyright: 2011 The Associated PressCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on January 15, 2011 at 17:28:16 PT
Hope
This is why I believe we are our brother's keeper. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%205:1-6&version=NKJV
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Comment #7 posted by FoM on January 15, 2011 at 16:59:45 PT
Hope
This part is what jumped out at me. One sees the need to make sure no one falls thru the cracks like how I feel and the other doesn't want to help those less fortunate. Excerpt: The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty. Luke 12:48: When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.Because social justice was a major part of my education in Catholic school I can't imagine not sharing with others to help them with their needs. Most on the right don't want to give up Social Security or Medicare so I don't understand the me me way of looking at the people in our country.
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on January 15, 2011 at 16:32:00 PT
Comment 4 FoM
This article is almost in answer to your comment.A Tale of Two Moralitieshttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14krugman.html?src=me&ref=generalThe comments are interesting, too.
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on January 14, 2011 at 15:09:48 PT
Push To Get Legal Marijuana Planted in The Garden 
January 14, 2011URL: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/health-science/item/11234-14teweed
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on January 13, 2011 at 14:02:08 PT
Vincent
There is so much I don't understand about human nature as far as being fair and compassionate. Last night the President gave a wonderful talk at the Memorial for the people who were killed in Arizona. Both my husband and I were so grateful for such a sensitive talk. I looked at articles to see how others were moved by his talk and all I saw was hate spewing out of people's mouths. 
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Comment #3 posted by Vincent on January 13, 2011 at 13:29:27 PT:
I know what happened
Very good, FoM! Gov. Christie is about my age, and he grew up in my general area. That is where the similarity ends. Now, my parents and the other elders in my family are rather old-fashioned, like most people in their generation. During the turbulence of the 1960s and early 1970s, they were staunch Republican, Archie Bunker-types, as was customary for White, Middle-Class folks of the time. We, the Baby-Boomer generation, grew up hearing all their reactionary comments but, we pretty much dismissed them as ignorance of the way the world changed, something that they didn't really accept.  Christie's problem, you see, is that he heard those comments and he...BELIEVED THEM! In spite of his offical story of "rags to riches", I don't believe he experienced a hungry day in his life. If he had, maybe his attitude would be different. 
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on January 13, 2011 at 06:44:30 PT
Vincent
I feel so bad for New Jersey. It was going so well and then Christie came along.
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Comment #1 posted by Vincent on January 13, 2011 at 06:14:17 PT:
Gov. Christie...
...is a prohibitionist lowlife!
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