Medical Marijuana Advances In N.J.

Yesterday, the New Jersey Senate voted 22-16 to pass a bill legalizing the use of medical marijuana. Yes, after hearing testimony from sick people, 16 people managed to vote against the bill. Not surprising, of course.

First, some background: A lot of people in California buy their weed legally (under state law) in medical dispensaries; a sizable portion of these are people who just want to get high recreationally. But while the FDA would never approve marijuana as a medical drug — it’s smoked, for one reason — marijuana is most certainly the only or best remedy for a small but significant number of people. Generally, these people don’t get high. They use marijuana to ease pain when no conventional method works.

California’s law — passed in a 1996 referendum — is broadly-defined, and so there are storefront shops in certain places and legal tugs of war between the state and the feds and a moral panic from quite a few people. New Jersey’s law would allow patients up to six marijuana plants and an ounce of usable weed; they’d also have access to “alternative treatment centers” where they could get marijuana.

But enough of all that. Let’s get to the meat of the issue here. Over-the-top quotes from activists and politicians!

• Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen): “It’s the wrong thing for people in New Jersey and the wrong thing for our children.”
• Joyce Nalepka, president, DrugFree Kids: “There is no therapeutic use of this, and this is a bill based on a lie.”
• David Evans, executive director, Drug Free School Coalition: “This is dressed up as compassion but this bill is way, way too loose… It will be too easy to get marijuana.”
• John Tomicki, executive director, League of American Families: “Parents are alarmed they’ve given the green light for marijuana use.”
• Terrence Farley of the anti-medical marijuana law enforcement group Safe Approved Medicine for New Jersey: “Marijuana is not medicine.”

Sen. Jeff Van Drew, who voted for the bill, made sure to tell the newspaper this factoid: “People don’t formulate their own morphine.” Be sure to also note this story from The Express Times, which actually takes seriously this classification from the government: “[T]he federal government classifies as a Schedule I drug alongside heroin and GHB, the date-rape drug.”

Update: I kept searching — because that’s what I do when I’m done a post, I keep gathering information about it! — and learned more about Gerald Cardinale, my new favorite New Jersey senator:

“Moderate use of marijuana causes brain cells to die,” Cardinale said. “That’s why the federal government made marijuana forbidden.”

Hey! Somebody needs to head over to the “Why is marijuana illegal?” page at Drug WarRant and learn some fun historical facts. I can’t wait for the debate in the Assembly.

N.J. Senate approves bill allowing use of medical marijuana [The Star-Ledger]
State Senate passes medical marijuana legislation [Press of Atlantic City]
New Jersey Senate approves medical marijuana bill [The Express-Times]

Photo by Shay Sowden used under a Creative Commons license

Online Dating, Deconstructed

There’s a quote in today’s Temple News that I am one hundred percent convinced was said by Dwight Schrute from The Office.

If you would direct your attention to this article about online dating:

Sophomore Nathan Walsh has nothing but contempt for online dating. The mechanical engineering major finds the concept to be “entirely too flawed to function in our society.”

“The system of online dating appears innocent and good-natured. However, it is quite a danger to those involved,” Walsh said. “In my experience, I have known marriages [that] have failed because the relationship began as an online confrontation.”

Now that’s a quote to give the school newspaper! I guess at Temple they accept anonymous, anecdotal evidence in class.

Daters aren’t feeling the virtual love [Temple News]

Quote Of The Day

“All doctors should know what patients are putting in their mouths.”

A supplement of trouble [Inquirer]

The Sweet Science Of Attribution

Thanks for the “familiar childhood wisdom” description. Wikipedia only calls it a “children’s rhyme.”

Bernard Fernandez | Fightin’ words pack a punch [Daily News]

Introducing: Franklin’s Law

Many of you may be familiar with Godwin’s Law, a semi-serious adage originally written by Mike Godwin in 1990: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”

That law is undeniably true. And, the popularity of the law — it’s well-known enough that I don’t know if I had to link the Wikipedia entry above — probably has stopped people from making analogies to Nazis or Hitler in things unrelated to things about Nazis or Hitler. And for that, Mike Godwin should be thanked and praised.

And now, I’d like to carry on with his work, so to speak. Follow me after the jump.

More »

Blogicized: Quotes, Tunes, Features

• Here’s a lesson in what not to say to your coworkers: “The board president is so hot he makes my panties damp!” Indeed. [Pesky'Apostrophe]

• Hey, remember when Q102 was a classic rock station? No? Well, they had some really strange ads to tell you to listen to it. [Phillyist]

• If you didn’t hear about that study Pew did about bloggers, well… good. You’re probably better off for it. (You’re probably better off if you don’t know about blogs at all, in fact.) But one of our own got a (well-deserved) feature piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about her! Hooray! [Tinapopo]

Understatement Of The Day

“He smiles in my face and turns around and kills my granddaughter. I really don’t appreciate it at all.”

Tempers Flare In Court As Man Accused Of Raping, Killing Toddler [NBC 10]

Something Is Rotten In The State Of PennDOT

There was a meeting yesterday about the extension of Woodhaven Road, which is having a race against finding a use for the old Byberry Hospital for “project in the Far Northeast that will take longest to get done.”

Woodhaven Road (PA Route 63) was “completed” in 1966. (So it’s beating Byberry.) It connects I-95 and the Boulevard. Its western end is at a small two-lane road, Evans Street, which dumps everyone onto Byberry Road in Somerton. If you’ve ever driven on Byberry Road in that area at any time besides, oh, 3 a.m., you’ll know that it’s possibly the most congested road in the world.

And so there have been plans to extend Woodhaven Road to Bustleton Road, but naturally residents in the area have complaints, NIMBY, blah blah blah, you get the idea. They’ve come together in the Tri-County Coalition to fight it, and, like many community groups fighting the government, sometimes the rhetoric is a bit over-the-top:

“Clearly there is no honor in PennDOT,” Tri-County spokesman Jim O’Neill said.

Yes, clearly, there is no honor in this state agency with a faceless bureaucracy! There is no honor in retreat! We will not go down without a fight! Win this one for the gipper!

Extension opponents blast PennDOT [Bucks County Courier Times]
Woodhaven Road (PA-63) [PhillyRoads.com]

Quickies: More than a ‘No comment’

• The best part about the article about the funeral home in Philadelphia that may have sold body parts without consent is this paragraph: “Garzone, 63, declined to comment yesterday. ‘I don’t have any comments on this situation,’ he said.” [Daily News]

• In other great quote news, a man from the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyer Association called a recent bill “[T]he second worst attack on victim rights.” Ooh, second worse! [Bucks County Courier Time]

• William “King Homicide” Sosa has been found guilty on several charges including racketeering, murder conspiracy, drug dealing. The jury didn’t believe his “Homicide doesn’t mean murder” defense. [Inky]

• Relax, Catholics, you can eat meat tomorrow. [KYW 1060]

This is progress?

Wait… how are we supposed to feel about this? Yay! We don’t discriminate! But, uhh, we give everyone equally shitty treatment… sigh.

Metro