“New York has the largest Jewish population of any state in the U.S., and a large percentage of that population observes kosher customs. By aligning its manufacturing/production processes with Kashrut New York Growing Partners] ensuring that all New Yorkers who could benefit from pain-management qualities of medical marijuana have access without having to go against the tenets of their religion."
Sucking At The Teat Of A Cash Cow? Hasidim Tell NY State They Should Get A Medical Marijuana License Because Their Products Will Fill A Need For The Kosher Consumer
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
New York Growing Partners wants to grow, manufacture and distribute medical marijuana in New York State. The company, which is currently applying for a license from the state, is owned by four men, two of whom are prominent hasidim: Leo Friedman, the son of top Satmar Zalman faction powerbroker Moshe “Gabbai” Friedman, and Gur hasid Michael Melnicke. The hasidic duo’s main business interests before this have been in nursing homes.
The state is only granting a total of five licenses, and New York Growing Partners trying to get an edge over the other companies applying for them by pitching its potential product as filling a need for kosher consumers.
Through a Freedom of Information request, Hella Winston of the Jewish Week obtained a June 4 letter written by the mayor of Schenectady to the state on behalf of New York Growing Partners.
“New York has the largest Jewish population of any state in the U.S., and a large percentage of that population observes kosher customs. By aligning its manufacturing/production processes with Kashrut New York Growing Partners] ensuring that all New Yorkers who could benefit from pain-management qualities of medical marijuana have access without having to go against the tenets of their religion,” the mayor’s letter reportedly claimed.
Other similar letters have reportedly been written on behalf of New York Growing Partners, as well. None of the letters reportedly name the principals in the company, which besides Friedman and Melnicke are Alex Solovey and Pat DeBenedictis, and they don’t detail those principals’ plans or their expertise.
Instead, all of the letters reportedly focus on New York Growing Partners’ plan to produce “kosher” marijuana.
Under New York's medical marijuana law, smoking and edible products will not be allowed. Instead, only marijuana pills, oils and vapors will be legal – meaning there is absolutely no reason Jews who keep kosher couldn’t buy any company’s product, kosher certified or not.
But the state’s medical marijuana law does allow for the state’s commissioner of health to grant special permission to license-holders to produce “edible food products” on a case-by-case basis.
Yeshiva University’s Rabbi J. David Bleich, a prominent neo-haredi voice at Yeshiva University, is a professor of Talmud who studies the interface of halakha (Orthodox Jewish law) and secular civil law. He heads YU’s postgraduate institute for the study of Talmudic jurisprudence and family law, and is best known in the US Orthodox Jewish community as an authority on Jewish medical ethics. He told the Jewish Week that medication in tablet form does not require kosher supervision. Liquids and capsules, however, can sometimes require kosher supervision. Bleich said there is likely no need for certification for marijuana delivered in vapor or oil form, unless it has been adulterated.
But adulteration is very unlikely with a closely administered medicine monitored by the government and anything, even an obviously non-kosher food product like bacon, is permissible to be consumed under halakha if it is necessary to save or sustain life, or mitigate severe or chronically severe pain or emotional/psychological distress – facts Bleich apparently failed to mention.
Instead, he said something that is demonstrably false if the marijuana is being consumed for most medical needs and if the other forms of delivery are not available or are not well-tolerated by a patient who keeps kosher.
“Once it [marijuana] is in a cookie it is no different from any other cookie and a cookie needs certification,” Bleich told the Jewish Week.
And while that may be correct for people using medical marijuana for some minor medical conditions or illnesses, for many others marijuana would be classified as lifesaving under halakha, and there would then be no strict requirement for kosher supervision. These products will be available in several forms that do not require kosher supervision at all in any case, and since edible products if approved by the state will almost certainly be vegetarian or vegan, kosher supervision would be superfluous because the product is consumed for its medical effect – not for its taste.
But as an intoxicant solely eaten to get high (just like a person might drink whiskey to get drunk), in almost every case the carrier for that eaten marijuana would need to be kosher (but not necessarily kosher supervised).
However, when consumed for legitimate medical purposes when other forms of the drug (like vapor or oil) are either not immediately available or are not tolerated by the patient, the carrier for eaten marijuana would not necessarily need to be kosher and would not under the strict halakha need kosher supervision.
Even so, Bleich also told the Jewish Week all companies applying for a medical marijuana licenses should also obtain kosher certification for their products.
“Medicine ought to be presented in kosher form, if possible, and I don’t know why [medical marijuana] can’t be since [the basic ingredient] is 'glatt kosher,’” Bleich said.
Medical marijuana has been a huge cash cow in states like Colorado, and even with the hoop of heavy state regulation to jump through and the need for extra security at points of sale, transport and manufacture, legal dealers, manufacturers and distributors have been flooded with large profits.
The New York-based Orthodox Union (OU), the world’s largest (and allegedly richest) kosher supervision company, told both the Forward and the New York Post earlier this year that it was considering offering kosher certification to medical marijuana products.
Like companies which produce food products, medical marijuana companies do not need to be Jewish-owned or hasidic-owned to obtain kosher supervision for their products.
Kosher certifiers like the OU have become known in recent years for putting their certification marks on products like laundry detergent and other products that are not edible and which are sometimes even poisonous – even though halakha clearly and indisputably does not require or even suggest these products need to be kosher.
Update 9:58 am CDT – Here are the medical conditions New York State will allow medical marijuana to be prescribed to treat. Note that in every case, under halakha its use would considered lifesaving and no kosher supervision would be required:
The Medical Marijuana Program will make medical marijuana accessible to patients with conditions including cancer, HIV/AIDS, Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS), Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, damage to the nervous tissue of the spinal cord with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity, epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease, neuropathies and Huntington's disease. The law includes these conditions when there is a clinical association with or complication of the condition resulting in cachexia or wasting syndrome, severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures; or severe or persistent muscle spasms. Acting State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker is also exploring mechanisms that may accelerate access to medical marijuana for children suffering from epilepsy. The Health Commissioner may expand the list of eligible conditions for which medical marijuana certifications may be issued by practitioners.
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Satmar Powerbroker's Son, Other Prominent Hasid Try To Enter Medical Marijuana Business.