6/20/18 Regular Meeting
By: Joseph L. Kuchie
SOUTH AMBOY – Residents voiced their concerns about the potential legalization of marijuana during last Wednesday’s South Amboy city council meeting.
Kim Seber, who has been one of the city’s most vocal residents behind overdose and opioid awareness, presented her learnings from a recent summit she attended pertaining to the education of legalization of marijuana. Presenters at the summit included Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey, Dr. Kevin Sabet from New Jersey RAMP, Sayreville Chief of Police John Zebrowski, and a representative from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Taskforce in Colorado.
“I wanted to brief you guys on what I’ve learned and have been learning at these summits I’ve been attending because each one of them I go in with an open mind and then I come out even more concerned than when I walked in,” Seber said.
Colorado Amendment 64 was passed in 2012 to address the personal use and regulation of marijuana for adults 21 and over within the state, and the commercial sale of marijuana to the general public began two years later in January 2014. The summit Seber has been attending highlighted the following statistics relating to the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and the effects it is having in the state:
• Opioid overdoses have increased in Colorado, not decreased
• Homelessness has skyrocketed
• Traffic deaths have increased
• Hospitalization related to marijuana poisoning have increased, with children between the ages of 0-5 showing a 185% increase.
She also mentioned that there are currently over 513 medical marijuana dispensaries and 491 storefronts in Colorado, which is more than the amount of Starbucks and McDonalds in the state combined.
According to Mayor Fred Henry, the city has already begun the process of developing an ordinance to limit the sale of marijuana in South Amboy following the city’s business meeting on June 6. Councilman Brian McLaughlin made the recommendation to look into the matter after learning other towns have done the same, including Point Pleasant Beach, Carlstadt, Garfield, and Hasbrouck Heights.
“We’ve already spoken about this at a business meeting and I have directed our Law Director [John Lanza] to come up with an ordinance that will ban,” Mayor Henry said. “We are pretty much all in agreement up here that this is not something we want in South Amboy, and John has already been looking into other ordinances to see how we can craft ours.”
“I think we’re all in agreement that something has to be done,” Council President Mickey Gross said. “I can’t speak for the other members of the council but I will tell you publicly right now I’m against it…I am definitely going to vote that we do not have a pot store here in the city of South Amboy. Period.”
“Brian [McLaughlin] had actually brought it up, he said ‘let’s start now and we’ll figure it out, if we’re doing it wrong then let’s figure out that we’re wrong but at least get the wheels rolling’,” Councilwoman Christine Noble said. “That has been talked about, more than talked about it’s going to happen.”
Council President Gross asked Law Director Lanza and Acting Municipal Clerk Laura Kemble to have the ordinance placed on the agenda for the city’s next business meeting, which will be held at city hall on July 11 at 6:00 p.m. The next city council meeting will be on July 25 at 7:00 p.m.
All council members were in attendance for Wednesday’s council meeting.
I attended the June 20th South Amboy City Council meeting where I heard resident Kim Seber speak so passionately about the ramifications of the potential legalization of recreational marijuana in the city. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with her on several occasions and feel that she is one of the region’s most vocal drug abuse treatment advocates and has worked tirelessly to help find solutions to the problem and save lives. I am in full agreement with Ms. Seber in believing that South Amboy has no place for legal recreational marijuana dispensaries, shops or stores because the risks outweigh any potential positives.
Back on April 19th, Ms. Seber and I attended a marijuana legalization discussion forum in Perth Amboy. Later, that evening I posted on my Facebook page that I believed the legalization of recreational marijuana could lead to a significant increase in the use of other recreational drugs, including opiates, and that much more needed to be examined before making such a quick decision on something that could have such crucial consequences such as addiction, an increase in crime and most importantly, the potentials of overdose and death.
I am a retired Middlesex County sheriff’s officer who has seen first-hand what drug addiction and related crimes can lead to. I am a proponent of stricter drug laws regarding the dispensing of substances for mere recreational purposes. I am in favor of the use of medicinal marijuana, provided the drug is dispensed in a medically controlled and regulated environment or facility. However, recreational marijuana is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Two years ago, I campaigned to become Middlesex County sheriff where I gained an even better understanding of what drug abuse can do to not only its victims but to their family members, as well as the communities they live in. During my campaign, I released “The Pisar Plan,” my own five-point strategy to combat the deadly drug abuse problem in Middlesex County, which has some of the highest drug deaths in the state. Law enforcement officers, recovery specialists, medical professionals, and educators are fighting abuse and addiction each and every day and we need to support them. Not make it more difficult.
While I am pleased our local elected officials now want to take up the issue of stopping recreational marijuana facilities in South Amboy before they become legal, the council and mayor need to focus on addressing and stopping opioid/heroin abuse, overdoses and deaths within the city, which should have been a top priority in the first place.
I am a candidate for South Amboy mayor and if elected, I will be sure to work hard to end the drug crisis by applying relevant components of “The Pisar Plan” to my overall drug abuse mitigation plan to help stem the tide of drug addiction, overdose, and death. Doing whatever we can to keep recreational marijuana facilities from opening right in here in the city is paramount, however, we must not ignore the prescription opioid and heroin problems that we are presently faced with in South Amboy and finish what hasn’t even really started.
-Peter Pisar
South Amboy, NJ