The Drug Policy Alliance who promoted this bill has had a full time paid staff working in New Jersey for the last few years and they hired a very high priced lobbying firm to manage this for them. There was a lot of money spread around by them. Although medical marijuana should be a non- partisan issue, it is not. Most Democrats vote for it and most Republicans do not. The legislature in New Jersey is Democratic and the committee chairs who controlled the agenda were all in favor of medical pot as was the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Health and the Governor. The hearings in the legislature were all stacked against us and the other side always had a lot of warning about hearings and we got very little. We found out at the last minute and could not get people there. Of course, the media is pro-medical marijuana and most of the stories were pro-pot. The odds against us were long so we must take some satisfaction that we were able to limit the bill as much as we did.