Opinion: Upper Freehold's plan to bad medical marijuana farms relies on flawed federal law
Published: Wednesday, December 28, 2011, 6:57 AM
Upper Freehold moves to block medical marijuana growing facilityIn New Jersey's long road to becoming a medical marijuana state, it turns out that passing the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act was just the beginning. Two years later, the controversy has moved from the Statehouse in Trenton into the halls of municipal complexes, where approved medical marijuana treatment centers have encountered local resistance. On Thursday, the five-person township committee for the small, rural town of Upper Freehold, in Monmouth County, gathered at Stonebridge Middle School, in Allentown, to enact a local law that would effectively ban a proposed medical marijuana growing center in their town. The law, which passed unanimously, prevents local approval for any applications that explicitly violate federal law -- which, of course, includes growing marijuana. An overwhelming majority of residents who turned out for Thursday night's meeting were there to express, in no uncertain terms, their desire to see the proposed facility, Breakwater Alternative Treatment Center, run out of town. (Video by Nyier Abdou/The Star-Ledger)Watch video
Various types of marijuana are on display at a nonprofit cooperative medical marijuana dispensary, in October 2009, in Los Angeles, California. Upper Freehold's council tonight passed an ordinance intended to block the construction of a pot-growing greenhouse in the community, another setback to the state's fledgling medical marijuana program.By Ken Wolski
The Upper Freehold Township Committee adopted an ordinance this month that is designed to ban medical marijuana facilities in its township (“Construction of pot greenhouses put on hold — Upper Freehold vote prevents town from violating federal law,” Dec. 17). The committee said that it would not permit any facility that was engaged in an activity that is against federal law. The ordinance is designed to thwart the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act in favor of the federal law, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
The federal law is deeply flawed, ineffective and unjust, however.
The CSA was hastily passed by Congress in 1970, after the previous federal ban on marijuana, the Marijuana Tax Act, was declared unconstitutional in 1969. The CSA established five “schedules,” or categories, for all drugs, supposedly based on the relative dangers of the drugs. Marijuana was placed in the most restrictive schedule of all — Schedule I — along with heroin and LSD. Schedule I drugs:
• Have no accepted medical uses in the U.S.;
• Are unsafe for use even under medical supervision; and
• Have a high potential for abuse.
• Have no accepted medical uses in the U.S.;
• Are unsafe for use even under medical supervision; and
• Have a high potential for abuse.
In 1972, the Shafer Commission, appointed by President Nixon to determine whether marijuana was properly classified, issued its report. The commission determined that marijuana should not be a scheduled drug at all, but that it should be decriminalized for adult use. The Shafer Commission said, “The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior.” President Nixon nonetheless ignored the results of the commission he himself had appointed.
In 1986, federal hearings began on a petition to reschedule marijuana in order to make it available for physicians to prescribe. U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young handed down the decision Sept. 6, 1988. He said:
“The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasoning, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between these sufferers and the benefit of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.”
The administrator of the DEA overturned the judge’s decision and kept marijuana listed as a Schedule I drug, where it remains today. As recently as July, the DEA rejected yet another petition to reschedule marijuana. And last month, the governors of Rhode Island and Washington state submitted a new petition to the DEA to reschedule the drug.
Clearly, marijuana has recognized medical uses in the United States. So far, 16 states have removed statewide penalties for patients who use medical marijuana. These states have well-defined medical uses for marijuana within their borders. In these states, an estimated 1 million patients are using marijuana with their physicians’ recommendation. Additionally, scores of national medical organizations are urging immediate legal access to marijuana for patients who would otherwise suffer needlessly or be forced, by medical necessity, to become lawbreakers.
The DEA’s Judge Young also said, “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” Not a single death has ever been recorded due to a marijuana overdose or allergic reaction. Non-prescription drugs such as aspirin and acetaminophen, by contrast, kill many Americans every year. Doctors routinely prescribe, and nurses routinely give, far more dangerous drugs than aspirin every day. To say that marijuana is unsafe for use even under medical supervision is an absurd embarrassment.
What does it mean to say that marijuana has a high potential for abuse? According to the federal government, any “unauthorized use” of marijuana is abuse. But the federal government does not authorize any use for marijuana, except in rare and very small clinical trials. Certainly, marijuana has a high potential for use; can the cancer patient, using marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation, be said to be abusing marijuana simply because it is against federal law?
About 100 million Americans — one in three — have used marijuana despite the draconian penalties imposed by the CSA and the state laws that are modeled on it. The latest government survey shows that about one in 15 high school seniors uses marijuana daily.
The CSA does not have, and does not deserve, the respect of Americans.
Finally, the CSA is enforced unjustly. Between 1999 and 2007, there were about 10 million adult marijuana arrests in the U.S., 80 percent for possession alone. Blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, but Human Rights Watch reports that blacks are arrested and incarcerated at a far greater rate than whites for drug violations. And when legitimate patients are prosecuted under the CSA, they are forbidden to explain their medical needs for marijuana to the jury.
Finally, the CSA is enforced unjustly. Between 1999 and 2007, there were about 10 million adult marijuana arrests in the U.S., 80 percent for possession alone. Blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, but Human Rights Watch reports that blacks are arrested and incarcerated at a far greater rate than whites for drug violations. And when legitimate patients are prosecuted under the CSA, they are forbidden to explain their medical needs for marijuana to the jury.
The CSA is the law the Upper Freehold Township Committee supports in its efforts to keep a marijuana production facility outside its borders — a law that is fundamentally flawed, ineffective and unjust.
Ken Wolski, R.N., MPA, is executive director of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey Inc. (cmmnj.org).
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