Both local, state and federal legislators are responsible for enacting crucial health policies that create efficiencies in the provision of healthcare services (World Health Organization, 2018). Laurell & Giovanella (2018) discuss that understanding these legislators’ roles in various committee assignments is, therefore, of significant importance to the general public to ensure that all legislators deliver and contribute to a healthy nation.
This work aims to discuss New Jersey legislators’ assigned committees and legislative commitments and explore their contribution to health policies, focusing on the use of marijuana for medical purposes. It proceeds to investigate other legislative initiatives either passed or pending approval by the senate, house, or governor’s office that these legislators sponsored. Finally, the work addresses the specific initiative to the legislator, highlighting a constructive argument against the specific legislation, in this case, the use of marijuana as a medication in the state of New Jersey.
Legislation type and scope of practice
The New Jersey legislator is composed of two bodies, namely, the general assembly and the state senate (Cadmus et al., 2020). Whereas there are 80 members in New Jersey’s general assembly, the state senate is composed of 40 members. Members of the general assembly and the senate alike are elected after every four years, and they assume office at midnight of the day they are elected. The sole responsibility of New Jersey’s legislators is to create and amend laws governing the state.
Similarly, different members of the legislator have different committee assignments in which they play an oversight role to ensure that those tasked with the provision of services to the population take responsibility. Flanagan & Zheng (2018) discuss that it is the responsibility of these committees to reject or approve Bills before they move to the Congress, which is the next stage. In terms of standing committees, the New Jersey legislative organ is made up of 16 standing committees in the state senate, while the general assembly has 23 standing committees. Further, the New Jersey legislature has additional five permanent joint committees: joint budget oversight joint committee, housing affordability joint committee, public schools joint committee, ethical standards joint committee, and the leasing and space utilization joint committee (Pozgar, 2020).
Current Policy and its Impact on Healthcare
This section examines current healthcare policy and how it impacts nursing in general. The health policy selected for this paper is the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. There have been ongoing debates on whether or not marijuana should be legalized for its therapeutic value, eliciting mixed reactions from New Jersey members. The legalization of marijuana is spreading throughout the United States, with a total of 16 states and Washington DC legalizing its use for citizens above the age of 21 years. In medication, 37 states have currently legalized its controlled use in providing treatment in the healthcare sector (Hall & Lynskey, 2020). This implies that most Americans have access to marijuana, whether it is for medical purposes or recreation.
Different states passed the medical legalization of marijuana at different times. Even though the state of Oregon was the first to liberalize cannabis law in 1973 through decriminalization, the state of California was the first state in the U.S. to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in 1996. Through the bold action of the then legislators, many states followed this trend, with a majority of them legalizing medicinal marijuana in the year 2016. In the year 2010, the state of New Jersey passed its Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana Act. The Bill received public support, especially from patients who had conditions that needed interventions using marijuana in controlled quantities. Since then, there has been one amendment in this Bill back in the year 2013. This work applauds the contributions made by researchers on the medical use of cannabis Sativa to inform the revision of laws governing access to the substance while improving access to medical care for the betterment of the health of New Jersey’s citizens.
Senator Joseph Vitale was one of the senate members who sponsored the amendment Bill to the existing Compassionate Use of Medical Marijuana Act of 2010. The letter below is addressed to the Senator, indicating concerns over the Bill’s amendments and how it affects nursing and Healthcare in general.
A Letter to the Senator
Senator Joseph Vitale,
Dear Senator, I am a New Jersey citizen who doubles as a medical student in one of the nursing institutions. I have undertaken extensive research on the medical use of marijuana and gained vast knowledge of its positive and negative impacts on our citizens. I have also gained a keen interest in your campaign ideology on the medical legalization of marijuana for the constituents of New Jersey. I would like to congratulate you on the relentless efforts you made to ensure that the Bill you primarily sponsored is passed into an Act for use on medical grounds.
I would like to take this opportunity and share my concerns over the Act through a constructive argument that I feel would be fundamental in shaping the future amendments on the use of marijuana for medical purposes. First, I support this Act because it provides relief to patients with chronic pain. With a majority of your constituents walking into health facilities with chronic pain, this Bill would be essential in ensuring adequate pain relief for such patients. I am also conscious of the FDA approval of the use of marijuana in treating rare forms of epilepsy, namely, the Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. However, I plead with your office to conduct expedited research on other medicinal values of marijuana to help in the treatment of various ailments.
One of the reasons why there is limited research on the drug is the directive given by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), considering marijuana as a schedule I drug in the same category as heroin, LSD, and ecstasy. These are considered to be highly abused and have limited or no medicinal value. I would also like to reiterate the positive impacts of using marijuana in medication as it helps in improving lung capacity, helps in the reduction of weight and subsequently reduces cases of overweight and obesity-related problems, is crucial in fighting cancer, helps in the treatment of depression, and regulating seizures as well as delivering promising results in the treatment of autism.
Even though there are negative impacts resulting from the abuse of marijuana, I believe that your office is competent in enforcing restrictions to ensure that it is used only by patients with genuine concerns as prescribed by qualified physicians.
How Stakeholders Benefit from these Legislative Changes
The stakeholders include policy drafters, patients, healthcare providers, and state and federal representatives in the healthcare sector. Primarily, this piece of legislation benefits patients with chronic pain that requires effective relief interventions. Due to the chemical components of marijuana, it is used as a pain reliever in medication. With controlled use, the adoption of marijuana for its medicinal value will positively impact the healthcare sector. Positive patient outcomes due to effective treatment protocols concern all the stakeholders mentioned above, resulting in a healthy population.
Conclusion
The legalization of marijuana in medical treatment is a sensitive debate that has been ongoing in the United States for many years. The state of New Jersey is one of the 37 states that has legalized medical marijuana to be used for patients with various conditions as advised by a qualified physician. This paper also addresses Bill’s primary sponsor through a letter in which his relentless efforts in passing the Bill into law are acknowledged. Further, it points out the benefits of using marijuana for medical purposes while maintaining that there is a need to enforce restrictions to avoid its abuse.
References
Cadmus, E., de Cordova, P. B., Weaver, S., & Ravichandran, A. (2020). Access to Care in New Jersey: Making the Case for Modernizing Legislation. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 11(1), 36-41.
Flanagan, S. V., & Zheng, Y. (2018). Comparative case study of legislative attempts to require private well testing in New Jersey and Maine. Environmental Science & Policy, 85, 40-46.
Hall, W., & Lynskey, M. (2020). Assessing the public health impacts of legalizing recreational cannabis use: the U.S. experience. World Psychiatry, 19(2), 179-186.
Pozgar, G. D. (2020). Legal and Ethical Essentials of Health Care Administration. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Laurell, A. C., & Giovanella, L. (2018). Health policies and systems in Latin America. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Global Public Health.
World Health Organization. (2018). Handbook for national quality policy and strategy: a practical approach for developing policy and strategy to improve quality of care.
write