The Township Committee unanimously voted Tuesday to ban marijuana sales, both medicinal and recreational, while legislators figure out what weed legalization will look like in the Garden State.
It probably didn't come as a shock to anyone in the meeting room Tuesday night. What was perhaps more surprising was that the hour-long discussion ended in a spat about decorum and resources for veterans.
"Twenty-two vets a day are killing themselves every day, and Freehold's answer to that is to ban their medicine," Edward "Lefty" Grimes, an East Hanover resident, said at the Township Committee meeting Tuesday night, standing up from his wheelchair. "That's shocking to me that you would not support your own troops. You wouldn't have a council if it weren't for the disabled or vets."
Recent studies indicate that the number of veterans killing themselves daily has dropped slightly to 20 on average. There is no evidence to suggest that all suicidal veterans could be cured with marijuana, though one Senate bill proposes legalizing medicinal marijuana for military veterans and having the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs conduct studies on how the substance affects veterans' pain.