Dr. Poonam Alaigh, the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health and Human Services (DHSS) is refusing to call marijuana a “medicine” but is willing to recognize its therapeutic benefits in one of her own private practice patients.
Testifying before a the Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Services Committee on March 3, 2011 she said, "I am a scientist. So unless I see studies to verify that marijuana can be used a medicine, and I don’t see those studies right now, I cannot call it a ‘medicine.’”
Alaigh and DHSS have apparently confined their research on this issue to the handful of marijuana studies that have been approved by the federal government.
Then, during a grilling by Senator James Whalen (D-2) about the many problems with her department’s proposed rules, Dr. Alaigh made an interesting remark: “In terms of the federal law, the DEA, this is still an illegal substance.”
Much of the testimony yesterday may prove to be a major problem for New Jersey’s DHSS Commissioner as The Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act of New Jersey is the law of the land and states the following unequivocally:
C.24:6I-2 Findings, declarations relative to the medical use of marijuana.
2. The Legislature finds and declares that: a. Modern medical research has discovered a beneficial use for marijuana in treating or alleviating the pain or other symptoms associated with certain debilitating medical conditions, as found by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in March 1999;
b. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 99 out of every 100 marijuana arrests in the country are made under state law, rather than under federal law. Consequently, changing state law will have the practical effect of protecting from arrest the vast majority of seriously ill people who have a medical need to use marijuana;
c. Although federal law currently prohibits the use of marijuana, the laws of Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington permit the use of marijuana for medical purposes, and in Arizona doctors are permitted to prescribe marijuana. New Jersey joins this effort for the health and welfare of its citizens;
d. States are not required to enforce federal law or prosecute people for engaging in activities prohibited by federal law; therefore, compliance with this act does not put the State of New Jersey in violation of federal law; READ FULL LAW
Dr. Alaigh’s role at DHSS is not as a scientist but as a civil servant. DHSS is bound to uphold state laws, but this may be the clearest view of Governor Chris Christie’s calculated effort to re-interpret and ultimately re-write the medical marijuana law.
There was also a strange twist at the end of the testimony. Dr. Alaigh, a practicing physician, said that she currently has a patient who benefits from medical marijuana use in New Jersey.
“I have to tell you I have patient right now who tells me how impactful his medicinal marijuana is...and his life changes because of what he takes. So, is it effective in a certain patient population? Yes, I have patient where it is effective.”
Senator Whelan responded quickly, “Well it sounds like a medicine to me.”
More about medical marijuana in New Jersey www.cmmnj.org
DHSS MMP website - http://www.state.nj.us/health/med_marijuana.shtml
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