“I’m not going to stop doing what I’m doing,” says medical marijuana advocate Eric Hafner. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Among those cheering at the Statehouse when New Jersey’s law allowing medical marijuana passed in January, 2010 was Eric Hafner, an 18-year-old who found in cannabis what he did not in prescription drugs: relief from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) brought on by a “traumatic, horrifying” incident two years earlier.
Two years later, however, the law has yet to be implemented, and Hafner is a facing a charge of possessing less than 50 grams of marijuana as a result of an early-morning traffic stop in Middletown in late November.
But even though the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act as written would not have protected him from prosecution had it been put into effect, Hafner says he will not plead guilty, as is customary in hundreds of such busts that go through the municipal court each year. Instead, he says, he’s prepared to go to jail to protest what he believes are the law’s shortcomings and to assert what he says is a constitutional right.
“I’m not going to plead guilty to using my medicine,” he says.
The 2010 state law allows patients of severe illnesses such as multiple sclerosis and AIDS to obtain cannabis through licensed dispensaries, none of which are yet in operation. It does not include PTSD among the qualifying medical conditions for which doctors are permitted to recommend pot, but has a provision for other illnesses to be covered after a waiting period of two years. However, the state Department of Health and Senior Services, which administers the law and has won several extensions on a deadline to put it into effect, has yet to allow any petitions for additional conditions be submitted.
Hafner, who described his trauma to redbankgreen but asked that details not be published, contends that doctors put him on Xanax for his condition, but it did little to mitigate “nightmares, flashbacks and depression,” and left him feeling “like a zombie” the next day. Marijuana, he says, calms him down so he can function. He notes that Delaware’s medical marijuana law, which was “modeled on New Jersey’s,” does included PTSD.
Home-schooled and unemployed, Hafner lives with his in a house that for 50 years was home to his grandmother, a retired registered nurse in her late 80s “who told me a lot of cancer patients she treated used marijuana” to relieve the effects of chemotherapy.
Active in Republican politics – he worked on Highlands Mayor Anna Little‘s failed congressional campaign in 2010 and supports Ron Paul’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination – Hafner hopes to someday pursue a law degree and maybe even run for Congress himself someday, he said in an interview last week.
For now, however, he’s trying to avoid six months in jail and perhaps $1,000 in fines.
Hafner was a passenger in a car driven by a friend when it was pulled over by police for a broken headlight on Navesink River Road near Locust Point Road around 2 a.m. on November 27. After telling the occupants that he smelled marijuana, an officer conducted a search that led to Hafner’s pot pipe rolled up in a sweatshirt in the back seat and about a gram of “sour diesel” pot in his wallet, Hafner said.
Hafner said he and the driver had not been smoking in the car, but they had been at a friend’s house and “there was cannabis present.”
Hafner said he has not hired an attorney, and may represent himself when his case comes up in municipal court. He plans to challenge details of his arrest, including the right of the police to search him.
But he also says he will press his case on the basis that “the state Constitution says I have the right to pursue [marijuana use] for safety.” He cites article I, which states,
“All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.”
A guilty plea, Hafner said, would come with mandatory probation and drug testing, but “I’m not going to stop what I’m doing, so probation is not an option. I’d be sacrificing my own health and safety, and I’m not going to do that, and he government has no right to tell me to do that.”
Having adopted the new law, the state should have permitted him and other PTSD patients to petition that their condition be included, he said.
Hafner “is being very open about the fact that he uses marijuana as medicine for PTSD,” said Ken Wolski, executive director of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana – New Jersey. “Eric is an exemplar of patients who continue to suffer through the legal system from conditions that medical marijuana can help.”
Wolski says there have been cases in the past two years in which patients who would be protected by the new law have had possession charges dismissed by local judges, “but it’s really just a crapshoot” for the defendants, he said.
Wolski says the Christie Admininistration is “absolutely dragging its heels” on implementing the law.
State Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon of Little Silver, who has introduced a bill that would knock down what he sees as artificial local roadblocks to the medical marijuana dispensaries, disagrees.
“I’ve worked with this administration. Their intention was not to kill it,” he said. “It’s fair to say they wanted it to be restrictive, but with good reason, and they were working to make this legislation work.”
O’Scanlon said Hafner has met with his staff, and through them he is familiar with Hafner’s situation. He said he, too, “would hope the authorities would cut Eric some slack and take into account” his health issue, because “I don’t think we’re going to see any legislative redress.”
The coalition plans to protest the delay in the law’s implementation at an event on the Statehouse steps at noon on Wednesday, the second anniversary of the law’s signing by Christie’s predecessor, Jon Corzine.
I doubt he’ll be pursuing a degree in law with a drug conviction on his record. How does he plan on passing the bar with a criminal record?
How can he use this defense if his illness is not cited as one of the uses for medical marijuana under the NJ state law?
Just because he uses it doesn’t mean it will be successful. I think he’s in for a rude awakening on how much the judge is going to care about his argument and how little anyone is going to care about this martyrdom for the cause. Confused tea party pothead conservative jailhouse lawyer thinks he has rights here in America and wants to string together a bunch of what if’s and coulda shoulda’s as a defense, probabation, fine, loss of license is what I forsee. That said, I hope things work out for you Eric. Maybe in California.
I wonder whether, 50 years from now, we’ll look back at today’s laws regarding marijuana and liken them to the 18th Amendment – Prohibition.
I have heard of way too many people getting into car accidents from drinking and driving. I have seen many friends become alcoholics, but know of none that became addicted to marijuana. I have friends that have ruined their relationships with their families, friends, and employers over alcohol, but not marijuana. I have seen people become agitated, unbalanced, sick and throwing up from alcohol, but not marijuana. Used responsibly, like anything else, I find nothing wrong with it, especially when used for medical use. If parents don’t want their kids to use it, making it illegal does not stop them from getting it or using it. It is a parents responsibility to teach and monitor their children, not the governments. Just legalize the darn stuff. And no…I don’t smoke it.
@Barbara: Agreed. I’ve seen a country decline into chaos and violence and murder and executions due to the flow of illegal drugs into this country. We collectively have to accept responsibility for the situation in Mexico, caused by this country’s insatiable need for illegal drugs, both marijuana and worse.
The train is coming down the track Marijuana will be legal in our lifetimes. It is pure hypocrisy to not legalize marijuana. Especially when it has show to help people who needed (and some who just want it).
Not seeing the difference between getting high and drinking beer.
The flow of illegal drugs into the US is directly caused by the insatiable demand for them. Maybe our healthcare system (oh that’s right, we don’t have one) needs to address that. That’s the root cause of that problem.
I’m sorry to see that he’s caught in the shenanigans of being a Republican, but I strongly applaud his willingness to put himself on the line for this issue.
Barbara hit the nail on the head. Alcohol (and tobacco) are both legal, yet they are known to cause extreme damage. Marijuana is illegal, yet the positive effects greatly outweigh the negative ones (that may or may exist to begin with).
I don’t smoke marijuana, not because of the legality but because it’s simply not something that interests me. Even if it was legal, I can’t see myself using it. But if someone else wants to use it, either for medicinal or recreational use, who are any of us to stop them?
As an MS patient of 15 years and newly diagnosed Secondary “Meniere’s Disease” both affect my central nervous system. After 15 yrs of living with MS and from trying 27 different narcotics, nothing works better or as long as Medical Marijuana for my condition.
Based on my own life I am 100% certain that medical marijuana can help patients of PTSD like this Gentleman Eric Hafner. I have also buried several Vietnam Vets in my lifetime that have all been able to live very productive life’s thanks to medical marijuana. Many of them were able to work as Longshoremen for decades without ever having a problem from PTSD thanks to their use of marijuana.
NJ has a law for medical marijuana and I am sure the Helth Dept is soon to add PTSD with the coming home of so many Iraqi/Afghan Vets all with PTSD.
Time will tell everyone and evolution will succeed!
God Bless Medical Marijuana for NJ.
As personal freind of eric and a medical marijuana user, I support the cause. Although I have to agree that a judje will problably not care that he uses it as a medicine. But as a person with extreme insomnia there is no better medication or pill that has worked better. As for a country that garentees the pursuit of happiness, America is one the most condradictary body of government I have ever heard of.
Drinking and tobbacco usage have only damaged family, friend and work relationship but marijuana has done nothing but strengthened and in some cases built friendships that last years on end.