[420 Girl]

Lorraine Hunt said she has lived with excruciating pain for 11 years.

Hunt, 43, of Hackettstown, said her rare and painful case of neurosarcoidosis began in her lungs and has since brought severe pain to her feet, hands, back and face.

Neurosarcoidosis affects the central nervous system and, on a scale of one to 10, has kept Hunt's daily pain hovering around an eight, she said.

Though she carries around a plastic bag full of medication, Hunt said, there is one possible solution she's never tried: marijuana.

If the state Legislature votes to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, Hunt said, it would mean she'd have another option to deal with the pain.

"I don't want to break the law," Hunt said. "I haven't tried to see how much marijuana would work to help my disorder.

"If I could get down to half the stuff that hurts, it would be so nice."

Sometimes debilitating bouts of pain have kept Hunt away from school functions for her three children and niece. Her therapy dog, Duchess, helps Hunt with simple tasks around the house. Cooking dinner is one of her few remaining acts of independence.

"If I can cook dinner, it means it hasn't won fully yet," Hunt said of her disorder. "But I feel like I'm running out of time."

In the Assembly

The New Jersey Senate voted Feb. 23 to legalize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Advocates said that was a huge step toward making New Jersey the 14th state to allow residents with serious debilitating conditions to use it for relief.

The Assembly bill, A804, faces an uncertain future before the health and senior services committee. Assembly representatives have to tackle the issue a few months before seeking re-election.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat also facing a fight for re-election this year, has said he would sign the bill. Former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, a Republican considered Corzine's most formidable foe, has said the law needs more controls over how marijuana would be distributed.

The legislation would allow residents, with a doctor's recommendation, to receive a state-issued registration card and possess up to six marijuana plants and one usable ounce of marijuana. Individuals could grow in their homes or purchase the drug from an alternative treatment center designated to grow and distribute marijuana.

Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, D-Camden, "is open to considering it as long as he can be convinced that it will be carefully regulated and available under medical supervision only to those with truly legitimate needs," according to a statement from Tom Hester, a spokesman for the Assembly Democrats.

Reaction to the legislation within the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee remains mixed. In last month's Perspectives, the journal of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence-New Jersey, committee member Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini said such "reckless public policy" could lead to misuse and abuse.

Federal officials have not conducted studies to substantiate the medicinal benefits of smoking marijuana, according to Angelini, R-Monmouth.

The committee vice chairwoman and a co-sponsor of the bill, Assemblywoman Connie Wagner, D-Bergen, said she believes the drug could have helped her mother, who died of cancer many years ago. Unable to digest food, Wagner's mother weighed 95 pounds when she died six weeks before Wagner's first child was born.

"I do see it as just any other prescribed medicine," Wagner said. "When you see somebody going through that much pain, you want something to relieve that pain."

The fact that a doctor would not monitor the usage of the marijuana is part of what bothers Assemblyman-elect John DiMaio. Under the proposed legislation, keeping track of the available quantities of the drug remains difficult, DiMaio said.

"It'll be difficult for someone to convince me to support it," said DiMaio, scheduled to be sworn in March 16 to the 23rd District covering Warren and Hunterdon counties.

Medical opinions mixed

New Jersey hospitals seem to be watching the progress of the marijuana bill without opinion or action. New Jersey Hospitals Association spokeswoman Kerry McKean Kelly said its members did not see the bill as a priority.

Susan Frost, a spokeswoman for Hackettstown Regional Medical Center, said because of a provision in the bill allowing patients to grow cannabis at home, it is unlikely to come into play in hospital operations.

"It would be a physician-based decision, based on his or her patient," Frost said.

The Medical Society of New Jersey, an advocacy group for physicians and patients, opposes the bill.

"While this bill will protect the physician/patient relationship it does not include clinical research studies to measure outcomes and utilization," the society said in a statement, calling for tougher controls to measure the effectiveness of marijuana on patients.

On the other hand, the New Jersey State Nurses Association passed a 2002 resolution supporting therapeutic marijuana use.

The resolution cited several studies -- some dating to the 1970s -- demonstrating marijuana's potential to relieve patient suffering from glaucoma, chemotherapy, multiple sclerosis and spinal injuries. The document added, "The benefits associated with medical marijuana use would outweigh any potential adverse effects."

Andrea Aughenbaugh, the nurses association's chief executive, said she expected nurses, many of whom deal with patients' pain on a daily basis, would understand the goals of medical marijuana. When the motion was presented to association members, she was still surprised how little debate there was.

"There was very little hesitation," Aughenbaugh said. "They said, 'If this works .'"

While allowing patients to grow the plant at home may cause concern in law enforcement circles, it is not a concern among the medical community, Aughenbaugh said.

"That just isn't anything we can really speak to," she said. "We just want it to be available."

'Anything to help someone you love'

Ruth Ann Damato, co-chairwoman for the Warren County Relay for Life, cared for her father, John Damato, as he battled three bouts of cancer over 10 years.

The former Phillipsburg councilman eventually succumbed to bladder cancer last September at 76.

Her father had serious trouble with nausea from cancer treatments, Ruth Ann Damato said. Marijuana, believed to lessen those symptoms, could have helped, she said

While the Korean War veteran was "too old school" to consider the drug, its legalization could have made a difference, Ruth Ann Damato said.

"If it's going to ease their pain, for cancer patients, I'm all for it after just seeing what I went through," she said.

She wonders if critics understand the hardships endured by cancer patients.

"You'd do anything you could to help someone you love," Damato said.

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