suffer needlessly without it and no patient should ever go to jail for following the advice of the doctor welcome to see a moment j t v m can watch the executive director of the goal listen for medical marijuana new jersey and here in the princeton community he studio today karen my interest goes back way back when when i was sixteen years old i was actually here in princeton with me show khushi and his wife abilene and there was a macrobiotic health movement that very few people really knew about and my interest in alternative health methods started way back when i was sixteen and the fast forward i also became very involved in legislation so i'm a political science major i was the vice president of business development at the new jersey chamber of commerce actually did write an amendment to a home based business bill very familiar with home rule in our state and really fascinated by those topics that i'm passionate about and this one is is one that i'm very passionate about especially with regards to the medical marijuana i just i think it's come at the right time we have a brand new governor that's really supportive of it my background lends the experience to be part of the coalition and to educate the general population in the legislators about such an important issue and i went on into insurance risk is really important to me worked with marsh and mclennan in the private health care act  exchange down in delaware we started the first private exchange and then went back to my chamber roots and became the executive vice president of the delaware state chamber and lots of issues in delaware as well so it's not an isolated incident you know all of the challenges and also the possibilities more and more the states are coming on board so i'm really excited to be here today with you and my colleague mitch and you know that's in a nutshell that's that's that about my green wave has started to rise in america i was always looking for opportunities to get back into the business i was born and raised in maryland and in mid two thousand and fourteen the state of maryland passed a very progressive medical cannabis  law specifically it's a state with a high population level high population densities higher education levels and they passed a law that included chronic pain in the list of qualifying it was and has someone who had been studying this space i knew that that was going to  a very robust market in the state of maryland so i reach back to my maryland connections i created a team formed a group and we applied for a dispensary grow and processing license in the state of maryland the process took longer than we thought it would hand a little late twenty sixteen the decisions were made fifteen growers were we were not one of the fifteen it was a very interesting process with a lot of  both of these processes had to be about a month and a half later we were informed that we had won a dispensary in our hometown of columbia maryland a very nice suburb of the d c baltimore metropolitan area  so upon that that news took some time i analyzed the opportunity in the possibility and i decided that this was something that we should pursue why that wasn't what we had originally went out for it was a seat at the table and an opportunity to s patients my partner's background in serving patients his family were the first people in america to teach acupuncture in one hundred seventy four in columbia maryland and since then they've taught many of the acupuncturist across the country they started the first accredited organization for a acupuncture degree in america called tai sophia and ended up as a maryland it's a two for health integrated health so they were they have a history a long history in serving patients especially in  things that the mainstream tends to overlook so as this opportunity arose my partner and myself kind of saw a similar situation from forty years years before and fast forward to today we opened the seventh i believe seventh or eighth medical cannabis dispensary in the state of maryland we've been open for about four weeks now we're seeing about two hundred patients a day and the program in maryland is off to a excellent start we've about already in new jersey in maryland registered in just a number a month out eleven months eleven months and new he has fifteen thousand in eight years i think this is correct this is correct so amazing it's amazing what happens when you add chronic pain to the list of of chronic pain wasn't originally a qualifying condition in new jersey but it was taken out and right now only chronic pain only qualifies in the cases of cancer and hiv aids in new jersey so it's been very restrictive it's one of the things that's been holding the program back agrees and we were looking forward to expanding the program here in new jersey but it was a very expensive proposition to get a dispensary started as you can imagine yes that's what they say on the east coast and really is quite different than starting one on the west coast those days of starting one with six thousand dollars and the amount of medicine are over and those stories are you know they they're all out there in california and colorado the business has become more mature it has become grown very quickly and it has educated as you know attracted a lot of very smart people i do think that one thing that has occurred is as smart people have come we don't want to lose our focus on the patient and this is about helping people and about giving people access to something that they've been told for a long time they don't have access to and it's very freeing for them when because of you know what we're looking at legalization here in new jersey and we want to see the real big need the big issue is how legalization is going to work out how it's going to play out is it going to be fair to women who are going to be fair to some requirements about racial and geographic diversity and other iteration took those requirements out in the end some decisions were made with racial diversity included in the with geographic diversity including the decision making process but not racial diversity as such there was and decision makers in the state of maryland who wore not happy with the process so that it's been an ongoing conversation mid two thousand and sixteen so probably going on you know close to two years now how to cure whatever it is that that went wrong in that process i can't really speak on it because you know it's a big discussions but the the maryland congressional black caucus is trying very different very hard to negotiate for more rural licenses their big concern and this this happens in every state that legalizes the barriers to entry for a grow are higher than the meaning moneywise and knowledge wise and there tends to be not as much of a lack of racial diversity in in the dispensary business but in the grove because it requires so much capital and so on and so forth and that tends to be historically in america you know the middle aged white males so that tends to be the people that have the resources to be able to put themselves in the position to win these very serious licenses which the states to their credit they are putting a lot of responsibility in a few number of people's hands and if you take race out of it it does make sense a lot of people who have a lot of long histories of when a successful businesses so from that point of view you can understand why in a blind type of situation these people would continuously we had over and over again and right but that being said the racial implications that have come from the war on drugs for so long are so massive that there needs to be something done to address you know those scars because of the failure so deep that if we don't address them now we're going to look back at fifty years and it's just going to be a continuation of the same stuff right we've got more on drugs has been devastating our society for decades  minorities you know specifically i mean people that have less of the opportunity to know and turn around and benefit from this right and i do think that is a an important part of this entire movement is is to try to lift up the people that have been most effective and the communities that have been most affected you know my partner he goes to west baltimore every day he stand in front of the c v s of a burned down when we turn to friday right after his offices it's next door to that and he sees people that get really really you know this is part of the solution equates explore it right you know the you know people who worry about the effect of marijuana on the children but they they fail to realize the effect of incarcerating the parents of the children you know on these children are left without the the love and the guidance and support of parental parents and the very disadvantaged situation and some of these inner cities and we found that with home based businesses so if you go into all the municipalities the state has so many municipalities so if you just start with the demographics and the geography of the state in general that's one of the first challenges to get everybody mar you know these are communities that you know it is for ever it's been you know they're very hard on drugs hard on any kind of stimulants it's a part of their brain and you know that if you don't it's and that's to be respected i mean alcohol we don't really consider legalize marijuana to be similar to alcohol we consider legalize marijuana to be similar to the vitamin shoppe to a supplement because we come from a a place where we believe that the benefits of cannabis so dramatically outweigh the negatives that apple has a lot of negatives associated with it right alcohol costs the average in the average year alcohol causes about eighty thousand deaths a year in america it's responsible for about a quarter of a trillion dollars of money that's spent you know on excessive alcohol consumption in the united states these are massive numbers right so we don't think about legalise marijuana  alcohol we think of it as the vitamin shoppe as a way for the average person to lower the barriers for the average person to supplement themselves because it's a powerful powerful medicine and you know many people say that well you know why would you legalize another drug the jersey you know but but really it's a safer alternative it's their drugs that are legal and it has so many medical benefits but isn't this the the problem the perhaps the  with the home rule doesn't isn't that really a reflection of the stigma that the government has been imposed on marijuana for for decades they considered a schedule one drug they consider it a stain there's no more dangerous drug in america than than marijuana according to the federal government and even in new jersey and i'm not sure how it is in maryland but new jersey also considers marijuana schedule one drug with no accepted medical uses despite the fact that they have a program that accepts medical use in place right and there were going to be expanding the medical uses so one of the things that were urging governor feet to do now is to the schedule marijuana rather than just reschedule it just take it out of the controlled substances act altogether and then make it more like a vitamin make it more like a supplement make it more in tune with holistic holistic medical practices when you when you put the list of schedule one drugs on on the front of a board it's a it's a it's one of those cases of and and and and death you know this was how they justified all the felonies that were associated with marijuana possession and then of course in one thousand in the sixty's and late in the seventy's you know merrill marijuana explosion of use among college students you know said well no it's probably more likely to be associated with peace love and happiness ok so the federal government has as a state started to decriminalize marijuana in various states they said well we're still going to keep it illegal because it might lead to more dangerous drugs you know that maybe the gateway theory what are your thoughts on that well as far as it being the gateway drug i mean i think the current explosion of opioid uses really goes to the prescription drugs if you've been to really point a finger at a gateway to the usage of opioids i think it starts with painkillers and these that's what i learned in wilmington  families that were affected can no longer afford to buy the prescriptions and ended up going to you know less costly pain relief so that i don't really agree with marie and i also think that it's been proven over and over again  marijuana as a gateway drug it actually what they found is that the best way to stop people from moving on to the next drugs is to regulate what they consider to be a gateway drug so it's a buy the average person is more likely to have a drug dealer an illegal drug they were trying to upset them to the next drug in non regulated scenario versus a regulated cannabis dispensary where we know exactly what's going on i mean we have wars and expectations and in that scenario you know it's it's this is the thing also we're not talking that's what erik's anymore it's not one state it's not two stains there are multiple states in this country where they have legalized recreational and medical marijuana and the sky has not fall last marijuana in the state of colorado today than they did before marijuana was legalized so if people want to talk about gateway drugs we now have for number one has to we're going to hedge fund and it has forms nobody cares about your opinion show me the data north well the rocky mountain high intensity drug trafficking organization they manipulate the data so when opponents of marijuana reform do tend to manipulate the data they may say that you know there's more fatal accidents that are associated with with marijuana use in colorado now we know that some of that is simply data manipulation that because they say well you know more people are using marijuana they're checking they're checking the metabolites of bacon fatal accidents and are seeing more metabolites for cannabis but there's no real indication that this the it was the intoxication that caused the media and the fatal accident patients who had over ingested cannabis and i actually find it encouraging that that patient is in the next day telling us how they over ingested cannabis as opposed to a person who over ingest heroin has a sixty five chance a percent chance of being dead the next day and the person who will reject that methamphetamine is now off for the next ninety six hours probably looking to do whatever they can to get more money to get more methamphetamine so is it possible to over a just kind of a short impossible to over ingest everything pizza drugs alcohol i think that what's important is when you over ingest kind of this if you wait long enough that will go away and you'll be fine and the real answer is i probably shouldn't use that particular thing to that degree the next time but you're alive and healthy and able to make that decision i think that's the most important contrast that with the tragedies of a fatal alcohol over indulgence a college campus and say well if you think about it also the regulation will actually help with that because if you're getting something then you're unaware of the actual substance and what you're getting it's no different than a bottle of alcohol that doesn't  you know if it's eighty proof first says twenty fouth there's going to be different side out of the regulations you don't know what you're getting by to clean and then who you're getting it from you know you may be very well be getting it from people who have met him said i mean to give you her to sell you and make it as much wiser in maryland in maryland all of the medicine is tested and tested again it has its track to see the sale so you know where it's been what kind of nutrients are in it the testing has been done to it and one of the things that many patients who were medicating with black market cannabis one of the reasons that they are their our patients you know down down the path of the journey of trying something new and figuring out because it is a it's an amazing point there's so much to it there's it's so deep and intense and you need people to lead you on this journey as to which part of it is best for me just just like when you go to the vitamin shoppe it's overwhelming when you you know when you don't know the names and the names are very foreign and it's it becomes overwhelming so you know there is a it's a powerful place a dispensary but it's also an overwhelming place for the average person w a been there that you know you can overdose on vitamins vitamin c vitamin e many oil you know so and that's illegal what are your plans how do you how are you planning to go about promoting legalization of marijuana step by step you know addressing it holistically can i think taking a three hundred sixty degree view point of it not just approaching the legislators but approaching health practitioners  physicians i was just talking to a physician who was vehemently opposed to medical marijuana five years ago as a sadly getting parkinson's and i was an avid user and a big advocate of it so i think it's just education education education you know with bills date it's location location location but with us it's really education because we're talking about myths that majority of the people believe you know so it's you know going back to the one nine hundred sixty s and this is a new improved version you know it's much it's much more diverse you know and there every choir is much more education so it isn't just with legislators it's with churches it's with you know everyone you know to understand you know moms and dads and think oh my gosh me and my teenagers going to get hooked on marijuana and then his or she is going to be a heroin user you know it's a general based education and then i think you know really going and looking at the legislation itself and being a real advocate of it you know having lobbied way back when and looking at home rule i think that we have our work to do you know  late eighty's and it affects so many different systems and in the body and diseases and medical conditions and symptoms that that every doctor really should know about and in new jersey at least so that's why i think we're edge where we're promoting you know it's harder to it's harder and it's it's labor intensive then to get to go out to the community to to educate about medical marijuana we would hope that the department health would have taken a role in that but but in the eight years that the program's been running the department office practically said nothing about it they do have a web page but you know but they they don't do any they don't go into the community don't advocate they don't tell banks are we clear that our job  especially as the as the people that touch the patient at the people that are the last line interacting with the patient we think if we don't pick up that mantle and carried ourselves nobody's going to and so something that we do often is get out into the community and you know majesty was born and raised in columbia maryland so that community means something especially extra to us but we see you know remedies remedies goal is to educate and through education these people want to oregon my daughter lives there and she's a holistic health practitioner and you know visiting the dispensaries and i had the privilege of visiting marilyn and it's it's just quite an experience you know and for those of your listening audience that have never been to one you know i would highly encourage them to do so i mean mitch is right right within itself it's like a school of sorts you know that and everything you could possibly want to know everybody there is so educated and so you know willing to share right problem is that you can't walk into a dispensary in new jersey unless you have an id card and so you know that the education the education is great at the dispensary don't get me wrong but it's only for qualified patients who are in there not not even for  everybody has this perception right i actually read a study yesterday was fascinating so my partner often talks about our dispensary as a third place as a place that people actually enjoy being outside of the home in the  workplace and i read a study yesterday with amazing i sent it to immediately it said that they believe that the doctors or scientists believe that being around people actually is beneficial in curing chronic pain they think that loneliness is part of the cause of this this wave of chronic pain that's nuts crossed america in the last twenty years and it actually emotionally ties back to loneliness and i found it fascinating you know that what my partner was tapping into was this sub conscious feeling of people come into a dispensary and they literally like being there right they literally for they and everyone in there is happy because this thing that's been held down for so long is is being fried and it's  and thank you carol for coming here to see amendment j t v and talking about your experiences thank you for your time thank you for more information about the coalition for medical marijuana if you're to join us and our free public meetings on the second tuesday of every month