Philly420: In N.J., a plea to make opioid addiction a qualifying condition

Chris Goldstein is a marijuana reform advocate living in New Jersey.

The New Jersey Department of Health held a public hearing Wednesday on adding qualifying medical conditions to the state's stagnant medical marijuana program.

Advocates, patients, doctors and families traveled to Trenton on a rainy morning to give their testimony in the basement of the War Memorial.

There is a particularly strong effort behind adding opiate addiction and chronic pain as a qualifying conditions for cannabis.

A growing body of research suggests that easy, affordable access to marijuana is helping to hold back the opiate crisis in some areas.

However, the severe limitations in NJ's compassionate use law are preventing that impact.

Ricardo Rivera a native of Camden whose daughter, Tatyana - "Tuffy" - is a registered medical marijuana patient who suffers from severe epilepsy.

He believes cannabis may have been able to save his sister, who succumbed to a heroin overdose in 2015.

Rivera joined the appeal to NJDOH, asking for the common-sense benefits of marijuana to be used in our fight against opiates. His testimony is below:

Today, I am here to speak for someone else in my family, someone I love but who could not attend in person: My sister, Matilda Candelaria.

On August 5, 2015 I felt her last heartbeat. Opiates and heroin is what took her from us.

She was taken off  of life support at 1:15 p.m. that day, but the doctors didn't pronounce her until 1:57 p.m. I was  responsible for making all her medically related decisions.

All the medical testing showed that she was brain dead due to the lack of oxygen for a long period of time. I made the choice to take her off of life support. No one should ever have to make that call, but I know that I am not alone.

Matilda started taking opiates at the age of 12 after she had surgery on both her feet. She had been born with a deformity that caused extreme pain and caused difficulty walking. Post-op she suffered extreme pain, so much that she couldn't sleep. She was in need of constant pain meds. This was the beginning of her addiction to opiates.

At 14-years-old Matilda would suffer her first overdose on  opiates. She had gotten access to lots of Percocets, took too many and nearly died.

 Fortunately, she was around friends that thought fast and got her the help.

At 31, Matilda would again overdose, this time from heroin.

I asked her, "Why are you on heroin?"

She had told me that 'H' was a lot easier to find, much cheaper and "it helps relieve my pain just as good as prescription drugs did."

She also said that she wanted to get off of heroin, but she said the withdrawal was too hard. She was in a place where it could kill her if she went cold turkey.

I had read about so many former opiate addicts that say cannabis helps relieve their opiate withdrawal. Marijuana actually makes it easier to kick the addiction. I had suggested to Matilda that she should try it.

She got access to high CBD cannabis oil and began taking it while going through withdrawal. She said, "I feel the physical side effects of the opiate withdrawal but it isn't as intense as it was when I didn't take cannabis."

My sister was clean for a couple of weeks after that. It was the first time she was clean that long in 10 years. Nonetheless, I would be holding her in my arms as her body found peace 6 months later.

New Jersey needs to expand the medical marijuana program right now.

We need more strains, better products, lower prices and more patients in the program.

Everyone living with opiate addiction or trying to kick addiction in New Jersey should have access to cannabis. Right now. Thank you. 

Contact Chris Goldstein at activevoiceradio@gmail.com