every forty two seconds someone is arrested for can patient should suffer needlessly without it and no patient should ever go to jail for following the advice of a doctor joining us and learn more about the exciting science of medical marijuana welcome to c n n j t v i'm ken waltz executive director of the coalition for medical marijuana new jersey i'm here in the princeton community t v studios today with tony liberty from sicklerville new jersey thank you for coming to princeton today tony thank you for having me pleasure so tony now you're a medical marijuana patient and in new jersey worse and then the muscle spasms started getting to be where they locked down on my neck kind of and that eventually created migraines and then over the years with different medical treatments and whatnot that migraines turned into chronic daily migraines  now tell me about these migraines so how did they affect you at first it was just i had to go home and lay in bed and you know dark room no sound no light and i would vomit it would get very awful level ten pain by far and it wasn't too interrupting a life because it was just one here and one there a couple of year but eventually they looked they became every other day every day two hours a day five hours a day twelve hours a day five hours a day twelve hours with that i had one that was thirty five days long and so i had to go into jefferson hospital and actually be induced into a coma and now you know that that's one of the problems we have we face here in new jersey with people who minimize the significance of headaches you know they they kind of laugh about using marijuana for headaches but they don't really realize how debilitating these migraine headaches can be i don't think anyone imagines how absolutely life shattering they can be until you've actually had something that's that nimitz like a done shot you know in my opinion it certainly can be a totally destroy the same link condition and the absolutely has as you mentioned you actually had to go to jefferson how long we are two weeks almost two weeks on my mind so and of course they tried various medicines on you while you were in jeff and i'm sure you were trying medicine the kind of medicines that they have you want to remember i've used him salts those are migraine abortive drugs and i've been you i have been given antidepressants because being in that kind of chronic pain makes you depressed and miserable and i had a lot of bad side effects with those i just did not like them they i was not a depressed person i was just in a lot of pain and of course opiates that was a kind of constant with that kind of level pain there's really nothing more that you can do it's at a certain point right pharmaceutical drug that they and regimen that the medical professionals could offer and how long did this persist for me from you had a neck injury and then you go on the jefferson on a number of medicines over what period of time which is some from original injury to getting on the cannabis program was ten years it's been about thirteen years now ten years and it got progressively worse and worse and worse and worse over the years and so so then you tried can do now do you use cannabis to abort the migraines to work to prevent the migraines and now it's more of a preventative measure when i originally was a give able to get on the program i don't really know exactly how to use the can properly for a migraine situation so i was just smoking a little of a thing a little and it did work as far as pain and mood you know general life got a little bit better but it did not stop the migraine cycle at all but what really worked is when i got the high c b d strains i had the access from the dispensary for the high c b d strains and i started making a mint in oil or like a coconut oil that i could then make in the head of bills and when i was able to use  daily high c b d a double dose that's when i've actually finally broke the migraines and have over the last six months now progressively gotten better and better better and well that's very interesting you know i can say you know i've heard other migraine sufferers say that  when they use if they smoke marijuana during a migraine into and actually makes it worse for them that is sometimes has that raises your blood pressure and a lot of times migraines have a lot to do with the broad blood pressure and in your brains or that they feel does feel it even more intensely if i was actively in a migraine i would not want to go and smoke like us a t v or anything that's alert and awake like that it certainly is not the right answer which is why people need to learn about right you know the different techniques and different ways the different can have annoyed contents  the t h c content versus the c b d conran and the various forms that marijuana is available and really the flower form versus the edible forms now it's been kind of difficult to get to access the edible forms from the alternative treatment centers here in new jersey so you've been making your own tony yes i do i get the flowers from the dispensary is you know with a different th scene c b d strains and then i use my magic butter machine and i usually make coconut or like an organic olive oil and then those are kind of the witch that you make in the magic butter machine and then those are the bases that i then can either just eat the oils directly turn them into a topical like a hand lotion or treats anything like that it's just one sure we have that oil sitting at home it's that much easier to be able to dose daily and repeatedly and get a you kind of learn what you're consistent doses to make you feel  make a more euphoric oil or you can make a noise that's not going to get you high much at all in the c b d does offset the t h c content which both allows you to put more t h c in your body without the negative side effects  not everyone thinks as a negative side effect but right right now it's the t h c is also responsible for the euphoria that correct to be the effect that many people seek when they use marijuana especially if you're in a depression situation or pains into ation it certainly is something that some people will want some people want right right sorry to be depressed when you're you forget same time yeah they think that's the meaning of the word so now this magic butter machine this is this makes it easier to make the oils that you it's pretty much that simple you know that's great and you were saying that you you actually help other people to make it we use using your magical but i'm sure yes i have if they have their own medical card and they go to the dispensary and get whatever strains that are the the and i think i've had four since then so for for migraines and about six months from six in a week before that it's been a miracle really we hear that often but you have other chronic pain in addition to that ever since that may sixteenth i had a massive muscle spasm that actually cracked my neck and it felt like a lightning bolt went through my body is the only way i can describe it it was like an electrical shock really and while it broke the migraines it seems to have created and i know i don't know the right word here but it's kind of like fibromyalgia maybe or chronic regional pain syndrome possibly and it's not diagnosed at all but it feels like my hands are dipped in fire sometimes like there i see and sweaty kind of but they'll literally feel like they're burning so you only way i can describe it it's not every day but the one doctor the talked about it said that he felt that the main trunk nerve in my neck which i had nerve entrapment i guess and they said that the nerve kind of like got wrong like a harp string and apparently that did something to my nervous system or my nerves that it's gotten better and better and better since that's happened it was really bad in the beginning  with nerve pressure that you said it various parts of the body and but i don't it doesn't affect your lower body just the upper but i know my feet the feet get the same as the hands with the clammy in the foyer feeling yeah i would expect that and it does kind of a rover even sometimes i sometimes i of wanders like my right arm will go completely numb sometimes there's all kinds of weird little idiosyncrasies to it and it's never been properly diagnosed really it's new and what was the original neck injury so i fell off a ladder was doing some housework for a friend and i fell i landed like on my left ear and shoulder and herniated several discs i'm sorry that's not good it happens so now when you went to  the department of health to get your i d card your medicinal marijuana program id card was were there any issues with that did you first you had to find a doctor who was in the program obviously not many doctors were in the program so you had to and go to an additional doctor in addition to the ones you were saying to to to start this process correct or actually i was actually lucky my primary care doctor was in the program about that so you have a one percent chance of th know very lucky person that that is how that happened and i was like in the dark in migraines at the time when he decided that you know he had gotten on the program and said you know i really think that with your case and the muscle spasms in the migraines and you know how you're that's that's pretty remarkable in new jersey for that happen i think i'm the only one that tells that story that way and so so then it wasn't much of an issue he gave you the reference number and then you just uploaded the documents to the department of health and believe it or not i still had to go to for additional appointments and pay cash because the insurance will cover it with them with a very doctor that you were saying even because i was his even as his primary care patient i was not allowed to go through the office that he worked for he had to go to a separate office and work out of a separate office because of issues with the corporation i guess i don't know all the details there about so i still had to jump through some hoops and i mean i would if i would thought that having known new and having done a complete history and physical an assessment on you and in treatment care plans that that certainly could have been a carrot tarried off even in one visit even if you had to go to a different  it probably could have and should have but at the time and this was earlier in the program i think everyone was so nervous it was like we're going to do everything exactly the way they recommend and we're not going to mess around with it right there what there was a great deal of uncertainty and some some things efficient thought it was required you know and that's why i feel that was the situation right right so at any rate you and you had to pay cash for these visits and and then you upload your documents to the department of health and you got your id card for two hundred dollars twenty i live right in between the two so but it is very expensive even with the low income discount and use and you know if they have a strain that is on sale or whatnot it still adds up especially for someone that's on disability it's kind of aggravating really you've got a medical only program here in new jersey and you've got disabled people that are very sick and they're trying to get off of opiates especially right and you're making it is expensive and as difficult as possible for these people that are really trying do the right thing for their own health and you know anything to try to help the opiate epidemic right now i can't see why they would stand in people's way for that right but the do to both of the alternative treatment centers offer low income viscounts my understand what the department helped put out was that the average cost of an ounce of marijuana in new jersey was about four hundred eighty nine dollars an ounce so now if oftentimes you may require two a low income to be able to afford that it seems like it's very difficult to for that isn't that correct is absolutely correct it is not easy to both survive as an individual and buy your medicine every single month especially on a disability check i mean that the two ounces of cannabis that you need especially to make idols and oils you need to have a decent amount to work with sure that takes up my whole entire disability check they offer i forget it's fifteen percent or twenty percent and i don't know if that's on every strain all the time or not but i think that if i was to go get it now it's there i think it's like three eighty for myself where it's for eighty for most everyone else you off opiates the opiates that you were on would you consider yourself being addicted to those opiates that were prescribed to you i think the right term is dependent but yes i was absolutely ns and still currently am dependent on opiates  with the chronic migraines the doctors really after going through just about every pharmaceutical cocktail that they could work up we found that oxy coat on was the only drug that allowed me to live i really wasn't living i was laying in bed most of the time and dose to almost nothing now i'm as low of a dose as i've been in a dozen years actually and i'm hoping to pull the band aid off here and be absolutely done with all pharmaceutical drugs in the next month or two were right about there it's not quite yet but you know that's terrific now and you say that you also you testified you submitted testimony to the medicinal marijuana panel that the department of health established in in support of the petition to recognize opiate use disorder as a qualifying condition for marijuana therapy in new jersey so and so that's great and i am very pleased to hear that i was glad that it was able to be useful and accepted in there and hopefully we'll get something done with this hopefully hopefully the the department of health except that these petitions during the month of august in two thousand and sixteen so in september and october give us the opportunity all certainly come and speak you know that's great that's great tony you know it's so important to hear you know stories you know personal stories some people dismiss them as anecdotal evidence but but the reality is that when you know you have someone who has a real life experience and they're telling the intimate details of their suffering and and how marijuana helped them you know they can't be dismissed like that and so as evident as mere anecdotes because they are living human beings by waving waving their medical confidentiality and telling you know their stories and that really is is very persuasive testimony and that's really how we got the original medical marijuana bill passed into law in two thousand and  ten which which has got me to be able to come here and talk to you today because without it if we didn't get that done in two thousand and ten i don't know that i'd still be standing here today right well we have the have the many patients who who who spoke up about that to to thank many patients in new jersey coalition for medical marijuana new jersey end and among other we're going to zation to we certainly don't want to take so credit for it you know the drug policy alliance was very active and normal new jersey was very active marijuana policy project was active in support and they continue their efforts for marijuana reform in new jersey so what's next for you are you are you supporting the drive for legalization of marijuana in new jersey i absolutely i think that's the only way to have all patients be able to get the access that they need you know in recreational is a tough word for me but i think that everyone should be able to grow plant in their backyard and i  think that home grow is the only real option to control the costs and allow patients to get the amount of help that they need and that and the access to raw cannabis like that and i really think that's the right step i mean i think it's great that we've been able to add the p t s d bill and to get more and more patients to have that access but i think a full legalization and the scheduling is the only right answer eventually and should be done tomorrow night opinion well thank you tony you know oregon ization certainly agrees with you we've  legalization of marijuana and you know we certainly support homegrown you know that really empowers patients to take control of their whatever medical condition that they have and to produce their medicine for pennies really they would give me economic freedom  no i would be rich but i would be able to have my own medicine and have money in my pocket at the same time right right and so so that's very important and also does away with the fears of big marijuana you know some big corporation coming in and taking over the marijuana industry in new jersey if patients are allowed to grow you know a limited amount of plants for or anyone can grow a limited amount of plants really because right now what we have is a marijuana distribution system in new jersey that is very much resembles a prescription medicine you know you have to go to your doctor every thirty sixty ninety days but how often you go it's about sixty sixty days every sixty days you have to go back for a recommendation to go to this alternative treatment center to get a certain amount of this controlled substance which cost a hundred dollars just to go for that reco you just say your doctor charges you or dollars you know every sixty days another hundred dollars t so that's but if it were available if marijuana were available for anyone in a liquor store or someplace where i d s were checked it would be more like an over the counter drug ties right into the opiate addiction problem where you have people that are you get in with tylenol and destroying their livers yeah yeah absolutely so so thank you so much for coming here to princeton community t v studio and telling your story tony i'm very grateful for it thank you very much for having me happy to be able to tell my story for more information about the coalition for medical marijuana new jersey join us and our three public meetings on the second tuesday of every month at the lawrence township library in mercer county new jersey from seven to nine p m snacks are served and all are welcome remember every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana every forty two seconds marijuana every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana is arrested for marijuana every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana every forty two seconds someone is arrested for marijuana it could be you