By ANGELA DELLI SANTI, The Associated Press - 06/09/06 (TRENTON, NJ) - A White House drug enforcement official on Thursday dismissed efforts to pass a medical marijuana law in New Jersey, saying "anecdotal evidence should not drive our nation's approval process for prescription drugs."

Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director for demand reduction in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, described marijuana as potentially addictive and capable of causing harmful health effects, and said the federal Food and Drug Administration does not endorse its use as a pain reliever. The FDA has, however, approved use of a prescription drug made with an active ingredient found in marijuana.

On Thursday, a state Senate health panel heard from drug policy experts and patients it had solicited for information on a bill sponsored by Sen. Nicholas Scutari to allow chronically ill patients with diseases such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis to use marijuana medicinally. Eleven other states have medical marijuana laws.

Those testifying Thursday included television personality Montel Williams, a registered medical marijuana user in California, who said he turned to marijuana to relieve debilitating knee and foot pain after trying Oxycontin and a variety of other drugs to no avail.

Alternately angry and weepy as he addressed the Senate panel, Williams said despite his accomplishments as a former Naval officer, television personality and actor, he's become known as a poster child for marijuana.

"What angers me so much is that all people want to consider me is a dope addict," he said, "when all I'm trying to do is get up in the morning and go to work, pay rent."

Don McGrath, whose 26-year-old son Sean died of cancer two years ago, told the panel that when all other drugs failed to ease his son's nausea from chemotherapy, an oncologist recommended marijuana "off the record."

"As a parent and a caregiver for Sean, I didn't need several years of clinical studies or an FDA approval to determine that marijuana was effective," his father said. "We relied on the recommendations of the medical specialists that were treating him and we saw clearly that it worked. And, I might add, it was working better than all the other FDA-approved, legal drugs that he was taking."

Scutari's bill would allow certain chronically ill patients to use marijuana medicinally by smoking it, eating it or taking it in tablets. The drug would be prescribed by a doctor and the program would be monitored by the state Health Department. The amount of marijuana a patient could possess would be capped at 1 ounce and patients would be issued cards identifying them as registered medical marijuana users.

The legislation has long been proposed by Scutari, D-Union, but had never before received a legislative hearing.

Scutari was the first to defend the bill Thursday, criticizing as ridiculous opponents' assertions that medical marijuana laws are a backdoor attempt to decriminalize the drug for recreational use.