Proud of New Jersey

It's nice to be proud of New Jersey. It doesn't happen often, but it happened recently when the legislature voted to allow medical marijuana and now-former Gov. Jon Corzine signed it into law. There are a lot of laws it would be nice to have in this state and even more laws that we have it would be nice not to have, but if any laws had to come into being in the new decade, I figure the medical marijuana law was the best. It's personal with me. I watched my grandmother go blind from glaucoma, then my aunt go nearly blind and my mother have vision problems. If marijuana has a chance of helping people with glaucoma (and I have heard plenty of anecdotal evidence it does) it outweighs every ridiculous argument against legalizing its medical use. Never mind the potential to help people with nausea from chemo or weight loss from AIDS or MS. And, the arguments are ridiculous. All medicines are drugs or poisons in some form and opiates are legal for medical use and not for street use when marijuana is far less threatening. And the argument was never a legitimate argument that marijuana is dangerous or a gateway drug. It was an argument by the large paper companies who didn't want competition from hemp products. Hemp is such a marvelous plant and its use would be an economic boon. But the big paper companies don't want to hear that, so they produce "reefer madness" mythology. Well, congratulations to the New Jersey state legislature and the outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine for ignoring the spurious protests of robber barons and allowing an important medicine to be used.