ARTICLE: N.J. patients, doctors weary of wait for medical marijuana

Sunday, April 22, 2012
Last updated: Monday April 23, 2012, 9:59 AM
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS

NorthJersey.com
staff writer

She’s a grandmother who volunteers at her church and runs a support group for people who are sick. She also smokes marijuana.

It is the only thing that alleviates the muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis that fold up Irvina Booker like a tent, she says, leaving her in the fetal position in excruciating pain. So when she needs it, people from her neighborhood in Englewood bring her marijuana. She doesn’t know where or how they get it — and won’t ask.

“Marijuana opens me up like a flower,” Booker said. “The medicines don’t work — my system is so messed up from taking so many that none of them work. Marijuana is the only thing that stops the pain.”

Booker and other patients with debilitating and terminal illnesses are now one step closer to obtaining marijuana legally after state health officials granted a Montclair center permission to start growing cannabis last week. But the multi-tiered process of legalizing the sale of medical marijuana in New Jersey is still about six months, maybe more, from being complete. Doctors, patients and their advocates are weary of waiting.

“There are 35,000 patients in hospice with less than six months to live who would have a lot less pain if they could get medical marijuana, and not one has gotten it,” said Ken Wolski, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana — New Jersey.

When Gov. Jon Corzine signed New Jersey’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act on his last day in office in early 2010, many expected marijuana dispensaries to be in operation by the end of the year. But Governor Christie opposed the program, and it stalled as layers of regulations were added.

State officials say regulations were needed to avoid problems like those in California, where hundreds of marijuana dispensaries are being investigated as fronts for drug dealers. New Jersey’s law now specifies which diseases can be treated, the physicians able to prescribe marijuana and the patients who can obtain it, and it caps the amount each patient may obtain at 2 ounces a month. The regulations allow for only six dispensaries in the state, each needing multiple permits and inspections before opening.

The precautions will leave little room for abuse, state officials said.

“We’re thrilled,” said Roseanne Scotti, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Patients are incredibly excited about this because it’s something tangible and they won’t have to get it illegally or suffer without the drug.”

Opponents of the law say marijuana is still classified as a highly addictive drug and allowing it to be dispensed legally will only put more of it on the street. They point to the lack of a substantial number of clinical trials showing its medicinal powers and disregard the myriad of anecdotal cases where marijuana has provided relief from pain, nausea or muscle spasms that pharmaceuticals could not.

The Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair is the first dispensary to obtain approval to start planting, but it will need more permits before it can dispense marijuana. The CEO of Greenleaf said last week that he was frustrated by the process — and said the company could hold off on planning until they receive more guarantees from the Christie administration about the program’s future.

“It’s great, and it’s a show of good faith on the department’s side,” said the CEO, Joe Stevens, who has publicly criticized delays with the program. “But what it comes down to is the patients. They still don’t have access and they don’t know when they will have access.”

Lamar Baker, a 24-year-old multiple sclerosis patient, has the gait of a man nearing the end of his life. He needs a cane for every step yet gets his marijuana on the streets while he waits for it to be available legally in New Jersey.

The Teaneck man was a high school basketball standout on his way to play at a small college in South Carolina when he woke up one day in pain. He felt like “there was a tennis ball on the bottom of my right foot,” he said.

A round of steroids helped for a time, but he soon began vomiting every time he ate. That’s when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. His searing pain continues to worsen and, he said, it has forced him to put on hold his plans to complete college and get a job.

“The medical marijuana law has been a long time in coming for New Jersey, but good things come to those who wait,” Baker said. “I’ve used medical marijuana — a friend brings it back sometimes from California — and I use the stuff off the streets. I can taste the difference, and the medical marijuana works better.

“When I smoke it, I can work out, go to therapy and really focus,” Baker said. “Sometimes I smoke two or three times a day and other days I don’t smoke at all. It really depends on the day.”

Patients who rely on street marijuana say they are concerned that it might be laced with something harmful.

“That’s all I worry about — if there’s going to be something in it,” said Booker, the Englewood grandmother. “Everyone in the neighborhood knows I’m in pain and will bring me marijuana if I ask. Sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesn’t, depending on the strain. So it will be nice to be able to find what strain works and get that all the time.”

Booker never thought she would know so much about weed. Growing up in the age of Woodstock, surrounded by drugs, she didn’t partake — she had no interest.

“I didn’t even know how to smoke it, how to roll it, nothing,” Booker said. “But I learned and now I use it every day.”

Booker said she is allergic to many of the drugs that physicians normally give patients with her symptoms, “from taking so many. They really messed up my system.”

Doctors like Robert Silverman, director of pain management at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, say they are particularly frustrated that patients can be prescribed potent, often addictive narcotics but can’t get medicinal marijuana more than two years after it was legalized.

“Some patients take amazing doses of narcotics — sometimes 1,000 milligrams of morphine an hour — and build up a tolerance to it and yet they can’t get an ounce of marijuana,” Silverman said. He is one of the 109 physicians statewide who registered to prescribe marijuana.

“Many of my patients are in constant, severe pain and if there’s anything I can do to help alleviate that, I’m going to do it,” he said. “Many have diseases with no cure, so why not try to give them a better quality of life?”

But less than 0.5 percent of the state’s 28,000 doctors are registered with the state to prescribe marijuana. Silverman said he’s unsure why his colleagues didn’t register. “Maybe apathy. I really don’t understand it,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you do everything you can to help your patients feel better?”

It is unclear why more doctors haven’t registered in New Jersey, but it may be that they’re waiting for a nod from the American Medical Association. The organization does not endorse state-based medical marijuana programs but rather is pushing for a review of its classification as a highly addictive drug. The organization is also urging significant clinical research be done on cannabinoid-based medicine and alternative delivery methods.

Wolski, of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana, blames the state’s newly added stipulation that doctors must certify that they have completed medical education in addiction and pain management within the past two years. Physicians who prescribe morphine and other addictive narcotics do not have to provide such documentation.

In Wyckoff, a man who cares for his ailing wife, a woman in her 70s with severe scoliosis, pulmonary problems and osteoporosis, calls the state’s requirements” ridiculous.” He asked that their names not be used because his wife smokes marijuana daily and he’s afraid of being arrested for illegal activity.

“This whole law is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of — they’re comparing marijuana to cocaine and crack,” he said. “The first time she had marijuana was like a miracle. She’s been in pain for 20 years and all of her symptoms went away within minutes.”

He said he pays about $125 for a quarter of an ounce of medical marijuana brought in from Colorado. A friend of his, a retired police officer, helped him connect with his supplier, he said.

“We’ve always been law-abiding citizens but when we talk about this, we have to ask, ‘What fool is keeping this from patients who need it?’ I can’t tell you what a difference it makes,” he said.

Dr. Steven Gronowitz, a Clifton gastroenterologist and the only physician in Passaic County to register with the state, believes medical marijuana will make a huge difference in the lives of some of his patients.

“It’s clearly accepted to help cancer patients with nausea and I have many patients who could benefit from it,” Gronowitz said. “It settles down nausea and increases appetite. We don’t know all the mechanics of how it works but I have some patients with functioning vomiting — they vomit frequently with no known cause — and it absolutely would help them.”

Physicians cannot start writing prescriptions yet. The marijuana takes three to four months to grow and the state must inspect Greenleaf once it is tending the plants at an undisclosed location. Permits are also needed for Greenleaf to operate as an alternative treatment center and to dispense the marijuana. The state must also create a patient registry.

It can’t come soon enough for Booker.

“I have lesions in my brain and on my spine and with medical marijuana, the pain is completely gone,” Booker said. “When Montel [Williams] talks about the pain, it’s that pain. It’s unbearable.”

This article contains material from The Star-Ledger. E-mail: williamsb@northjersey.com