New Jersey Medical Marijuana Legislation Update: Poised to Pass?
Filed under: Prescription Drugs, Proposed Legislation, State Initiatives
Supporters are hopeful that before Governor-Elect Chris Christie takes office next month, the New Jersey legislature will pass — and current Governor Jon Corzine will sign — medical marijuana legislation. In February 2009, the “New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act,” which would allow patients suffering from “debilitating medical conditions” to treat their symptoms with marijuana without fear of state criminal reprisals, passed the state Senate.
In June 2009, Seton Hall Law’s Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law & Policy issued a position paper calling on the full legislature to pass the Act, arguing that it would “allow New Jersey residents with debilitating medical conditions access to marijuana to ease their suffering without creating an undue risk of abuse or diversion.” Soon thereafter, the Act cleared the Assembly Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee, albeit with a number of amendments, including several bolstering the Act’s already strict safeguards against abuse and diversion. (For a detailed summary of the differences between the Senate and Assembly versions of the Act, see below.)
According to an article in the New Jersey Law Journal, a legislative aide “says they are trying to get the [Act] posted for a floor vote on Dec. 7, Jan. 7 or Jan. 11, the remaining voting sessions in the current term. The Assembly is expected to pass it.” Due to the amendments added by the Assembly Committee, the Senate would need to pass the Act again before it would reach the Governor’s desk. Even if the Act is not passed during the current lame-duck session, however, there is hope for its passage in sessions to come. Governor-Elect Christie has indicated that, with sufficient restrictions in place, “he would be supportive of such legislation.”
Summary of Differences between Assembly and Senate Versions
Change to definition of “bona fide physician-patient relationship.”
The Senate’s version of the Act (S119) requires that patients who wish to use medical marijuana obtain a “written certification” from a physician with whom they have a “bona fide physician-patient relationship.” Such a relationship is said to exist whenever a physician has completed a full assessment, including a physical examination, of a patient. The Assembly’s version (A804) includes a significantly narrower definition, providing that only the physician with “ongoing primary responsibility” for treating a patient’s “debilitating medical condition” can approve that patient to use marijuana. Such a physician must be “board-certified, if available” in the specialty appropriate for caring for the condition which qualifies the patient to use marijuana.
Changes to list of eligible “debilitating medical conditions.”
- Whereas S119 would have granted eligibility for marijuana to patients suffering from “severe and persistent muscle spasms, including, but not limited to, those characteristic of multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease,” A804 limits eligibility to those with “intractable skeletal muscular spasticity,” which would, it would seem, include some patients with multiple sclerosis, but exclude those with Crohn’s disease.
- Whereas S119 made all patients with cachexia or wasting syndrome, severe nausea, or severe or chronic pain eligible, under A804 patients with those conditions are only eligible if their symptoms are the result of AIDS or cancer. Concomitantly, neither AIDS nor non-terminal cancer render a patient eligible unless they cause cachexia or wasting syndrome, severe nausea, or severe or chronic pain.
- A804 adds to the list of those eligible for marijuana, patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis. Patients with cancer that is “terminal” and glaucoma that is “resistant to conventional therapy” are also eligible; under S119 all cancer and glaucoma patients were eligible.
- Notably, both versions include a provision allowing for additional medical conditions to be added by regulation.
Changes to rules governing “medical marijuana alternative treatment centers.”
Under A804, eligible patients will no longer be permitted to grow marijuana. The statute’s protection will only apply to patients who obtain marijuana from New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services-approved “medical marijuana alternative treatment centers.” A804 adds as a requirement of approval that such centers be operated on a nonprofit basis. They do not have to be recognized as such by the IRS but they do need to comply with all state nonprofit laws. Perhaps in an effort to mitigate hardship that might arise as a result of these, more restrictive, provisions, A804 exhorts DHSS to “seek to ensure the availability of alternative treatment centers throughout the State, including, to the maximum extent practicable, at least two each in the northern, central, and southern regions of the State.”
Other potentially-significant changes.
- Unlike S119, A804 does not protect patients and others from arrest or prosecution; its protection is limited to waiver of applicable “civil or administrative penalties.”
- A804 also eliminates protection for caregivers who assist patients with medical marijuana use. Instead, it provides that “[t]he commissioner shall adopt regulations to: (1) provide for the use by a registered qualifying patient of a designated individual in an emergency situation to transport marijuana to the patient who is otherwise unable to obtain marijuana from an alternative treatment center[.]“
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