Medical marijuana patient to Scutari: Let my people grow | Editorial [Video]

Willie Beemer has lived in ceaseless pain since shattering his right leg in a motorbike accident at age 14. There’s a visible knot on his shin, which turns even a short walk into an arduous slog, and that’s only when the leg isn’t numb entirely.

He has gone through countless gallons of Motrin arthritis cream over the years; sometimes he gets relief from expensive lotions containing CBD oil. But nothing works better on his pain than cannabis, which he cannot afford. The only logical, life-saving alternative is to grow his own marijuana, because the two ounces he needs each month costs about $800 at a legal dispensary.

So imagine his trauma last June 13, when the police entered his mobile home in Pittsgrove, confiscated the 15 marijuana plants from his tiny greenhouse, and charged him with a pair of first-degree felonies for cultivating and distributing cannabis.

“I showed the summons to my …