Prior to its public meeting on Monday, July 29, the Voorhees Township Committee held a public hearing in the courtroom of the Voorhees Town Center. Although the discussion was around a sometimes divisive topic, this one didn’t go up in smoke.
As advertised in a release put out by the township earlier in the month, the purpose was “to receive public comments regarding anticipated requests to site medical marijuana facilities within the township of Voorhees.”
As of the meeting, no applications had been received by the township, therefore no determination to accept or reject such facilities had been made by the township committee either.
However, with the news in July that the state’s Medical Marijuana Program would be expanding to seek to open as many as 24 additional alternative treatment centers across multiple stages of the medical cannabis process, township committee wanted to receive comments from residents before moving in either direction.
Bill Caruso, an attorney with Archer & Greiner, P.C., opened the meeting on request of committee to provide a brief overview on the topic before taking residents’ comments and questions. Caruso, a former Voorhees resident, runs the firm’s cannabis practice, but has also served as a chief of staff and campaign manager for multiple state politicians.
“I want to start bringing new opportunities to this state,” said Caruso. “This community has to decide where, and if, it wants medical cannabis, but I can assure you that this community’s citizens are already benefiting from medical cannabis.”
Caruso noted the state’s MMP has 50,000 residents enrolled in the program, with more to come, and the need for growth facilities and distribution centers also growing. Additionally, Caruso said he sees the potential for research to be done by multiple state medical facilities, granted in future rounds, to further investigate the potential benefits of medical cannabis.
AJ Rastogi, a Voorhees resident, physician and founding member of North American Spine & Pain, spoke during the public comment portion of the hearing to advocate for a potential medical cannabis facility within the township.
“We’ve been early adopters of anything we can use to reduce or prevent the use of opiates at our practice for our acute and our chronic pain patients,” said Rastogi. “And medical marijuana has been a great advantage, a humongous pull for our practice. In the early days, there was a lot of fighting just the stigma of patients that thought medical marijuana was just another form of getting high … myself personally, I’ve seen tons of patients benefit from it.”
Voorhees resident Chad Puschel also addressed committee during the hearing, speaking as a medical marijuana patient who was one of the first 100 in the state to join the program.
After being diagnosed for a condition in 2005, Puschel says he was prescribed various medications for approximately five years that he doesn’t feel worked well. Eventually, he came to find and realize the benefits that cannabis has to benefit his life.
“I learned how much it controlled all my symptoms, and from that point on, my life has completely gotten better,” said Puschel.
Another of the nearly 10 people to speak to the committee, with all being in favor of introducing medical cannabis to Voorhees Township, was Jarryd Stamatelos, whose wife, he says, has had three reconstructive knee surgeries over the past six years, with opiates having been prescribed at various times.
Before being able to register for the medical marijuana program, Stamatelos says he started to obtain marijuana for his wife rather than use opiates to better manage her pain while recovering from surgery.
“It was an amazing turnaround, she was able to not only recover quicker, but way more healthily as well,” said Stamatelos. “So I just wanted to voice my opinion and give a small note saying that I’d be in favor of this, and that if it doesn’t come to Voorhees that it’ll come somewhere else and we’d be missing out on a major opportunity.”
The deadline for the current round of applications for licenses for the medical marijuana program expansion is Aug. 21 and Aug. 22, with another round potentially opening up afterward.
Mayor Michael Mignogna, in a written statement to The Sun, said the public hearing was very positive in favor of allowing medical cannabis within Voorhees Township, but that any official action would most likely come during a potential additional round for the program due to the close August deadline.
“Every member of the public who spoke at the hearing was strongly in favor of allowing medical cannabis in Voorhees,” said Mignogna. “As always, the township committee will strongly consider this public input as we move forward in discussing this important issue. We will continue to evaluate and study the issue and do not anticipate taking any formal action prior to the August deadline.”
According to Committeeman Harry Platt, the township planning board has performed a study of the township’s land to be used as a guide in investigating where potential medical marijuana facilities could be located.
“We’re looking at areas that are around 1,000 feet from all schools, synagogues or churches and any daycare centers,” said Platt. “Some of the [places] that fall in nicely in that category are the northernmost end of Route 73 near Marlton … which sits away from a lot of things in the area. The same thing goes for the southernmost part towards Berlin. That’s another area that could possibly suit our needs.”
Platt said there are various additional areas around Voorhees Township that were simply identified as potential locations for the future, such as the Virtua campus in Voorhees due to it being a medical facility.
“I think between those sites, it provides a lot of good possibilities, which are not going to negatively affect any of the people or facilities that we would prefer to stay away from,” said Platt. “Based on the feedback we received … I don’t see any reason not to keep moving forward with this.”
