NJ buzz: Medical marijuana to be grown by Rutgers?

[SeniorBuzz]

New Jersey's medical marijuana advocates are buzzing over word that Gov. Chris Christie is floating major changes to the way legal pot could be grown and distributed in the state before a system already signed into law can take effect.

Rutgers University's New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the New Jersey Hospital Association said Friday that the administration has contacted them in recent weeks about taking a role in producing and distributing medical marijuana.

Both groups said the talks were preliminary and legal issues would need to be worked out first. But both said they're interested.

The idea of having the university and hospitals as the sole growers and dispensers was first reported Friday by The Star-Ledger of Newark. Mike Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, would not speak about the plans Friday other than to say multiple options were being considered.

Having Rutgers cultivate or oversee cultivation and hospitals dispense it would be a major change to the structure called for in the current law, which is to take effect Oct. 1, but may be delayed. Under the law, at least six private groups would grow and distribute the marijuana.

Although the idea has been considered elsewhere, designating a single state-approved grower would be a radical departure from the practices in the 13 other states that allow medical marijuana. The other states have provisions for approved users to grow their own, and most have another supply chain as well.

No state uses hospitals to distribute the drug.

State Sen. Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat from Linden who is a sponsor of the medical marijuana act, said he has reservations about changing the law.

"There's nothing that says we have to do it," he said. "We don't want to be overly restrictive."

Another key sponsor, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Princeton, supports the new approach. "If it provides opportunities for Rutgers University to provide research and academic curriculum on the subject, all the better," he said.

Gusciora said he hopes lawmakers will decide in the next week or so whether to stick with the current law or switch to a different system.

They'll be hearing from medical marijuana activists who say the drug can help patients ease pain and symptoms of glaucoma, cancer and other ailments.

"I don't understand why we would even consider it at this point after spending four years going back to the drawing board. I'm sort of speechless," said Roseann Scotti, New Jersey director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

The advocates also point to possible legal complications for Rutgers and hospitals if they get into the marijuana business, even with the state's support.

Although marijuana has been gaining acceptance in some corners of the medical world, the federal government still considers it illegal. Anyone convicted of growing more than 100 plants is subject to a mandatory 5-year federal prison term.

"This is the biggest legal risk," said Anne M. Davis, a lawyer who is seeking to open an alternative treatment center to distribute marijuana and is also one of the state's main experts in marijuana-related law. "I cannot believe that Christie as former prosecutor would take it on."

The Obama administration has said it won't prosecute people in the marijuana business who are complying with state medical marijuana laws. But that word doesn't carry the force of law, she said.

Rutgers and the hospitals could risk losing all their federal funding, Davis said.

Robert Goodman, executive director of the agricultural experiment station, said the university has begun exploring the legal issues around growing marijuana.

But it's not easy for a university to be allowed to grow pot for science' sake.

The only place marijuana is grown with the federal government's approval is in a small program at the University of Mississippi.

Lyle Craker, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, said he's been seeking permission since 2001 to grow marijuana to study the health effects of various strains. He hasn't been denied permission by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, but he also hasn't been allowed to proceed.

Medical marijuana supporters in New Jersey fret that if there's a monopoly on legal growing, the quality of the buds may be poor.

They also worry that taking time to reconsider the law will hurt patients in the meantime.

"There are sick people right now who need relief," said the Drug Policy Alliance's Scotti. "They are going to the black market. They are putting themselves at risk."

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