a marijuana advocacy nonprofit based in ridgewood new jersey thank you so much for coming brian thanks for having me so brian now you're a graduate of from a polk college with a degree in law and society and you've been working for was involved in a couple various campaigns that sort of who brought me on board and and showed me the ropes and so on and but ever since high school i had found myself interested in marijuana and its history because i found it to be bit surprising and that's when you're starting to sort of challenge yourself in terms of what it is that you're reading it became an interest of mine from an early age by that sixteen or so and then through working in politics i sort of saw how much what was in play and how basic it really was in terms of tribal mentality and the way that people behaved and what they cared about and why and how reactive people were but not necessarily with a great deal of knowledge to back her why they were so upset about something and that sort of turned into a career somehow and it really went from a way to make beer money to somehow becoming this career and i felt like i was getting stuck in  and i decided i'd try to do something that i cared about and so i became interested in how it is that i would start my own political nonprofit and got the ball rolling and meeting with a bunch of friends that i've been lucky and fortunate to to meet in my website very impressed with the and with all that you have posted there thank you very nice scent and you call this three front so i do oh yeah because you're looking at the three different fronts for marijuana reform medical more involvement if you get into something where i'm looking to seventy information however from a personal standpoint i've unfortunately dealt with i suppose a bit more death than the average person or young person a relatively young person at this point right and i you know i've had an aunt that suffered very horribly with r s d my grandmother passed away from from pancreatic cancer my father has prostate cancer i know people with various ailments evaluating petitions right now to add qualifying conditions to the medicinal marijuana program and aristide was actually it was like two or three of the petitions several people added petitions for that but were hoping to add chronic pain brain as an overall condition used to see that reza qualifying condition in new jersey and we certainly hope that that our legislators and will recognize that marijuana is far from being a gateway drug it really is an exit dru g for so many people it helps to wean them off of opiates so it works in synergy with the opiates to require fewer opiates to break and for pain for conditions of chronic pain so  because the bill passed in two thousand and ten in new jersey medical marijuana funding became available to patients in december of two thousand and twelve and we've been working our organization and been working to undo some of their restrictions that are involved with  program to make it available more available in different forms and for more people i was already in new york city's a fundraiser at the time so the discussion at the time was gay marriage and things to this effect and those are the hot topics that i had to concern myself with and over something glad that you or your efforts are now regarding marijuana reform in new jersey and the research  is you have some very good information about the difficulty in getting research done in the united states basically on on on marijuana oh it's brutal to try to deal with the d n a and to go through all the hoops that they have in play let's say that your brilliant scientists in here at johns hopkins university was reading an article a couple of months ago about this and the discussion was about well i would like very much to s marijuana but as soon as you try to put these things into motion number one it takes forever number two they look at you with a fine tooth comb and they want you to have all sorts of ridiculous things like you need to have a safe that is bolted to the floor and its outer i mean while you know kids across the campus i'm sure walking around with a gram or something to this effect no one's dropping dead as a result of it and you want to put the brilliant mind in place so that they could better research how we can make this better opposed to how how is it a horrible drug how is it a further scourge of abuse is an addiction which is something that surprisingly they will expedite for you to be able to study so it's very twisted and i know that they've the d a s made certain expressions that they would try to work to better fashion people studying it who are qualified but you know believe it when you see it and so far that that remains to be seen since the controlled substances act passed in one nine hundred seventy only the only legal supply of marijuana for research purposes has been the university of mississippi right and and it's very very difficult to get marijuana from them for the type of  research into the benefits of medical marijuana that you know the mission of the national institute of drug abuse which controls access to that supply is is to discover harms that has hit marijuana not brights them so it really is very to and you know it's very difficult but and research is very expensive so we have a lab this period of time and sometimes it's done quarterly sometimes it's an annually but if you're speaking with people  making you know contributions for specific research you know well maybe we'll be able to have it in three years it's not really something that's interesting for some folks they would prefer to see something more actionable like well what about in six months what are we doing and you sort of switch topics and there's also there's also this negative component that still attached to marijuana as far as it being something that just sort of deadbeats or burnouts these these sort of stereotypes still  exist and they're unfortunate because they've limited us and many ways specifically with concern to people who are sick and who have tried going through the wringer in decades trying to find different drugs and while there's a new drug is being released and so many people don't have th time and it's just very sad and it's sad that there's also at the other end of the spectrum the focus on being number one or the top the best etc and in this we  slower selves down and we don't allow ourselves to move forward and it's something that has proven to be incredibly beneficial you know absolutely you know that's part of the problem i think is allowing the da to have a say in what scientific and medical studies get done in the united states you know here where we have federal police you know determining medical science the billet you know whether or not studies can get done and for medical and and medicine and science right professor craker from the university of massachusetts amherst i don't know if you're familiar with him but he worked for almost a decade to allow to try to get permission to grow marijuana supply of marijuana so that he could conduct clinical trials and and he got approval from his institutional review board from the food and drug administration and the da came to his facility in and person number of times to inspect it and they finally said no we're just not going to let you throw it here so and he appealed that decision to the to the administrative law judge administrative law judge mary ellen bitner said oh yes by all means the government supply of marijuana is inadequate to conduct these clinical trials especially the large scale clinical trials which as you noted can cost hundred the the the da even though they still insisted that marijuana remain a schedule one drug they did seem to loosen the restrictions for other universities other agencies like universities to grow marijuana for research purposes so we'll see how that works out i don't believe there are no universities growing it right now outside of the university of mississippi so and even if those universities do grow the marijuana are they look kind of studies are going to be approved right that's that's another issue i think that has to be dealt with is it just going to be studies that again look for forms associated with marijuana or are they actually going to be investigating some of the many benefits of therapeutic marijuana chuck rosenberg who is laughing at the very notion that marijuana so certainly we hope that the the removal of some of the restrictions at any rate on the growing of marijuana for research purposes bull will come to a good end but again that remains to be seen and marijuana reform is going to be it's interesting because now we've seen that there's been mass industry that's that's formed of the course of these past several years within the obama industry and they've been flowering in that use of pot but and now you have billions of dollars at stake you have significant business persons that are involving themselves you have significant  behind these things in the form of say for instance sean parker co founder of facebook you have the progressive family who's been involved heavily and now everything is on the line for people you know this is their gold rush in certain instances and and you have the administration which to some degree you know you can't you can't really say because they you have trump on the campaign trail it's been to an arena full of people saying that two things that were very important one that he does understand that marijuana has medicinal applications he personally knows people that suffer from given maladies and he has seen for whatever reason that it works so he thinks that that's something that he's for you know he's for medical and then the second thing which was really the biggest from an enterprise standpoint for these persons that osha's addressing he was saying that it should be a state by state issue for recreational that's what he was signaling to the people and in a way it allowed people to breathe a sigh of relief but you know of course you're dealing with the president who i suppose has earned a slight reputation for going back and forth on certain issues or as though he is forming an opinion as he goes on based upon public opinion but the public opinions rather clear and has been for quite some time in terms of at least assessing what a majority is the majority of americans want medical marijuana i think that the figure recently from quinnipiac thursday of last week i think was like ninety three percent of americans want medical marijuana so that's that that's at least in line but then you have sean spicer who's going out and saying that while that's appreciated the recreational marijuana aspect of things is something that perhaps there will be further federal jurisdiction that will be seeing and that will in fact be using their might against these various states which is going to be very interesting to see what sort of plays out i think that right now it's a matter of posturing i think that the challenge for the trump administration of that's what they want to do is number one they're going back on what many people took to be a promise and also now exactly are going to overturn all of these you have so many jobs in place right now you have colorado who i think just took in what was it a billion dollars previous year two hundred million was served in tax or sending kids to the university with i think four hundred fifty five thousand dollars or something to this effect so also teen uses come down from the nih to study that they do every single year so you scourge which is i think an important term in assessing this because it brings about sort of the historical standpoint of things people can't control themselves you know and went from being mexican migrants in the southwest and you know the  thirty s who had become these crazed persons and now it shows where will your is going to become some horrible addicts or it's going to lead to you know as a gateway drug that it was a stepping stone you know from harry janssen or the head of the federal narcotics so there's a it's interesting to see history still play out with these misnomers that were created by somebody that heavily relied upon race in the form of harry jay and slayer and that it was mexican and blacks and jazz musicians and and what they were doing with white women and i mean it's very bizarre if a person's not for milieu with it is it's not discussed all that often they would hear this and what were you going on but i mean this is this is actually true it is actually it actually happened in history that these were the the basis for policy that we now have in being seen the united states of america didn't really  marijuana was at large as we do now everyone knows everyone is now and it all sort of began with a very very peculiar set of lies and they were very effective i mean harry johnson was an incredible bureaucrat look at what he did know there was no science behind the prohibition the original prohibition of marijuana if you go back to nineteen thirty seven the government's line was that marijuana would lead to insanity criminality and death right and you know there was you know it was all it was all propaganda that that really led to the original removal of marijuana as the retina of medicinal here in the right states so these are the exact same misnomers that they're using now it but again whatever you discuss these things it is because there's not only the united states not only because you know during during the sixty's and during the fifty's right know when there was an explosion of marijuana youth among the use among the you're right you know you would expect if there was a relationship between marijuana marijuana schizophrenia to spike then when with the marijuana use but it didn't and even internationally countries like canada and the united states that use marijuana a great deal has the same  level of schizophrenia and right in a country like japan that does not use marijuana very often right anyway so you know there were there was no science it and now you know just so much of what what the government has been saying about marijuana is not only false but it's the opposite right you know because marijuana actually has can have a noise that have anti psychotic properties so you know c b d for example is being used in europe to treat cases of schizophrenia and i'm sure it's well as far as their not being the science or as far as this being you know false facts you know the americans for safe access sued the drug enforcement administration saying that they were in violation of the information quality act but and they made them remove i mean there hasn't been the acceptance of this being the reason but i can't think of there being any other reason than because of the  where you're lying this is not true design your website is owned by the federal government which is funded by the people you need to take this down this is false and they had that marijuana causes lung cancer on their website they said that it had  permanent damaging effects to cognition they had to take that down i mean there's still a couple that are up in the gateway theory and the gateway theory short which you're seeing disappearing from daire materials but i think that that could have been something that something that the the internet found themselves obsessed with because come in and shut it all down or trying to come in and it's going to open the floodgates for this and it's very interesting to sort of watch play out but then you of course realize again at least with regard to the medicinal standpoint you're dealing with people who are very very sick and it's not really least is the is this state's right of states right to determine the practice of medicine within each state and the federal government really cannot interfere with those it can disrupt them but you know the supreme court has recognized that states have the right to determine that the practice of medicine within each state and so you know hopefully that will some part of that will at least extend to the recreational in so far as the states are not required to enforce federal laws and the state i mean the federal government really can't say anything about if a state were to remove the criminal penalties for the circumstances so there's very very little that the federal government could do to interfere with that but there they could interfere with the regulation of the of medical marijuana they could sell our regular recreational marijuana for example that  my opinion they could say well you know you're not you're not allowed to tax marijuana because it's an illegal substance federally so well in erie of course he's saying it would be blood money to those who dare to tax recreational marijuana  don't know that he's very interesting man as well but he soon to be out now of course you know i mean the federal government has to recognize as you pointed out the many economic benefits of legalizing marijuana but what about a what about the political you know aspect of it do you think that there is any type of effort in the republican party to continue to prosecute the laws against marijuana and other drug laws because it has a disproportionate impact on the inner city residents who are primarily democrats you know isn't this somehow some way to disenfranchise many democrats to disrupt the political organizations in the inner cities right i don't think these people are all that bright were it would be something that would be that that grand i don't think that anyone really has a plan and i think that this is something that's gone on for so long and it's become you know almost too big to fail  where you know and then no one's responsible if it doesn't really work out just right which is why there's been so much emphasis on what's happening in colorado and it's like well the sky hasn't fallen in colorado this pretty fantastic you know here in new jersey we had both sides of the aisle a couple of state senators that went out to lead by senator scutari and they went out and they visited these these pot shops and they saw how you know everyone that when it was carted i think in fact one of the senators senators had gone in and he was the night you know i think that he was about fifty percent of a no i'm sorry you don't have an idea very sorry you can't come then which is very interesting it was sort of exactly what you would want to see right to these degrees and again and emphasize teen use hasn't gone up and that's for an array of reasons number one i mean they they're the ones that have access to it anyway over some random fifty year old guy you know because there are you know and high school and so on you have greater access points to these things but they seem to to a very limited degree be losing interest in it i mean the fact that it's been legalized hasn't made it more attractive it's just something that's been around it's always been around and unfortunately in the united states more than began paying attention to it was to demonize it and there's still these long lasting effects and now you have huge industries that are relying upon it in certain instances arizona was very interesting because you had two contributions that went against  significant organizations that were right we had the money into the against prop two a five i believe one was services group of america which made a contribution in it or one hundred thousand dollars that it goes right into therapeutics offense will produce or that contributed i think like five hundred sixty thousand dollars but isn't it interesting that an entity that makes money off of supplying food to inmates in the state of arizona is making a contribution to defeat prop two a five so if any point there could be in making an argument that you know this is something that in making legal you're going to bring down a certain level of criminality i mean these are their clients these people rely upon there being a steady flow of unaids and if somebody gets busted for a bit of pocket and they start going down the line of well now you have to pay thousands of dollars or you don't have it that's the trouble then we're going to put you into these various programs and treat you as an addict and we're going to him it's bizarre and it leads down a very bad path for people and it's it's very interesting the way that it shredded at large within within that system i mean that's one of the prison guards unions that are attached that of course law enforcement unions and so on you know but as a society we've we've thank you to the internet even you know you could have a little website where you just put down all that you could gather all that you can know and then that's and it's permeating these more sort of conservative aspects of society specifically say for instance law enforcement pew did a poll and it found that two thirds of police officers in the united states america no longer one prohibition of marijuana thirty seven percent of these two thirds believe that it should be missile only thirty two percent believe that it should be medicinal and recreational and that's tremendous because typically you would sort of rely upon it you know a police officer being a traditional in your mind you know budweiser drinking red white and blue american it's a gateway drug and cetera and it's sort of a wrong side of the tracks perspective and but that's led to huge industry huge relying upon that very big way and there's a lot of money that generated from it as well so we hope to see we hope to see better progress in new jersey and you know what oregon station is hopeful that marijuana legalization bill will pass in two thousand and eighteen and we're hoping for there early two thousand and eighteen but if you have more information for more information about your organization we can go every forty two seconds somebody is arrested for cannabis for more information about the coalition for medical marijuana in new jersey join us and our free public meetings on the second tuesday of every month along township libraries mercer county new jersey seven