Christie and medical marijuana
In Shmuley Boteach’s May 2 column, “Judging Obama, Christie, and Kerry,” he says he is very grateful that Chris Christie is honoring the dinner as a speaker. The reason we should shun Chris Christie is not what he said about the “occupied territories.” It is because, before he was elected in 2009, a medical marijuana bill passed overwhelmingly in the state Senate and was made into law by Governor Corzine. Since that time, Chris Christie has worked to undermine the program, to the point that we have fewer patients allowed medical marijuana than any other state.
The price also is double what it should be, the quality is poor, and there are many big government hurdles to go through.
This led to the death of a baby girl, Sabina Johanna, as her parents struggled to go through these hoops. She died of a seizure, without being able to try a strain of marijuana, called Charlotte’s Web, which has kept many children alive and seizure-free.
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Another woman, Cheryl Miller, an MS sufferer, died in severe pain. During her final months she was unable to obtain medical marijuana because of the governor’s laws. Many thousands of hospice patients suffered for three years, while Christie created delay after delay. To this day, the list of qualifying conditions is more harsh than in any other state, causing people to suffer needlessly.
This governor goes against every part of the Torah that teaches us how to deal with people, especially, the sick, the suffering, the oppressed. And to pour salt on the wounds, the governor mocks and taunts the patients when they and their advocates ask for simple things, like an oversight committee to address and correct the many wrongs that are being committed. He tells them that they just want legalization.
So wanting to suffer less – that’s not okay? Healing people is not allowed? Which religion says this?
To honor such a man is an affront to everything that Judaism stands for. I urge those attending to walk out when Christie starts to speak. I urge Shmuley to discover this issue – if he knew about it, he surely would not have invited this governor.
If it were his child, chas veshalom, who was unable to get medicine, he would act differently.
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