N.J. lawmakers vote to legalize medical marijuana

TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey Legislature on Monday approved a plan that would make the state the 14th in the nation, but one of the few on the East Coast, to legalize the use of marijuana to help patients with chronic illnesses.

The General Assembly and state Senate, on the final day of the legislative session, approved a plan to allow patients diagnosed with severe illnesses — including cancer, AIDS, Lou Gehrig's disease, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis — access to marijuana distributed through state-monitored dispensaries.

Gov. Jon Corzine has said he would sign it into law before leaving office next Tuesday. Supporters said that within nine months, patients with a prescription from their doctors should be able to obtain marijuana at one of six locations around the state.

"It's nice to finally see a day when democracy helps heal people," said Charles Kwiatkowski, 38, one of dozens of ill patients who rallied at the State House before the vote and broke into an ovation when the lawmakers approved the measure.

Kwiatkowski, of Hazlet, N.J., who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, said his doctors have recommended marijuana to treat neuralgia, a symptom that causes him to lose the feeling and the use of his right arm and shoulder.

Approval of the law, after years of lobbying by patient-rights groups and advocates of less restrictive drug laws, was nearly derailed at the eleventh hour as some Democratic lawmakers wavered and Gov.-elect Chris Christie, a Republican, went to the State House and expressed reservations.

However, it passed by comfortable margins in both houses: 48-14 in the General Assembly and 25-13 in the state Senate.

Opponents often pointed to California as a cautionary tale, saying that medical marijuana is so loosely regulated there that its use has essentially been decriminalized. Under California law, residents can obtain legal marijuana for a list of maladies as common, and as vaguely defined, as anxiety or chronic pain.