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MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW NEEDS A FINAL PUSH TOWARD IMPLEMENTATION

It has been more than a year since medical marijuana was legalized in the state.  And yet the deadline for would-be marijuana growers and sellers to apply to the state for a license only arrived last Monday. 

Not that it really seems to matter much.  Patients still don't have access to the marijuana and the pain relief it offers and will have to continue to wait while lawmakers try to hammer out the rules for implementation.  And patients don't even know what it is to which they will have access when the time comes.  That's how bogged down this entire process has become. 

This has gone on long enough.  It is easy to say that state officials have bigger priorities these days -- but don't try telling that to those in need of the relief that the marijuana can provide. 

The overriding difficulty here is the desire of Gov.  Chris Christie and his administration to delay or even prevent the law from being implemented.  Or, at the very least, the hope appears to be to gut the law in such a way that it can't deliver on its intent.  The governor's original set of rules for implementation was so restrictive on growth and distribution that patients faced potentially daunting transportation challenges just to fill a prescription. 

Later compromises expanded the access, as well as the categories of medical conditions that could quality for medical marijuana.  But one major flaw remained, limiting to 10 percent the level of THC -- the chemical in marijuana that gives it its properties and generates the pain relief -- included in the state-prescribed pot.  What good, then, is medical marijuana when essentially stripped of the key ingredient? Patients would, as a result, face two options -- either smoke a lot more pot than they otherwise would need to smoke to obtain relief, or continue to seek out more potent illegal marijuana. 

Christie's caution isn't unwarranted.  Medical marijuana has been widely abused in some states where it was legalized, most notably California.  Other states with tighter restrictions have had better results, however, and the governor undoubtedly wants New Jersey to fit into the latter category. 

So do we.  But in establishing the necessary restrictions, New Jersey can't sabotage the potential effectiveness of the law.  Making access unnecessarily difficult even for those with genuine medical conditions and valid prescriptions was a deficiency that has been corrected to a degree.  But the marijuana obtained by qualified patients needs to actually work as well once they get it.