Greg Bean Coda With John Merla, it's one goofy thing after another 'Merla Blames Outburst on Mother Insult, Split Pants." Unless you get the Indepen-dent, the Greater Media newspaper that covers the Monmouth County Bayshore towns that include Keyport, you likely would have missed that headline in last week's edition of the paper. But for those of you who haven't made his acquaintance, Keyport Mayor John Merla is one of the politicians caught up in Operation Bid Rig by the U.S. Attorney's Office, and he is currently facing an 18-page, eight-count federal indictment for corruption that could cost him a maximum of $2 million in fines and 120 years in prison upon conviction. Currently free on $50,000 bail, he is scheduled to go to trial this October, just about the time his campaign for another term as mayor (as an independent, since he quit the Republican Party in a snit) will be coming to a close. In the meantime, Merla's behavior seems to be spinning out of control. Last month, during a hearing by the Borough Council to consider a liquor license issue regarding another member of the Merla family at the Uptown Bar & Grille, Keyport Detective Lt. Thomas Mitchell was giving testimony in regard to the matter, and somehow the nature of that testimony set Merla off (at the time, the mayor was sitting in the audience and not even taking an official part in the hearing). After Mitchell finished testifying that several investigations into the Uptown Bar & Grille might be sufficient cause not to extend the establishment's liquor license, Merla began heckling Mitchell, saying, among other things, "You ain't got nothing!" "Go ahead and laugh!" and for some inexplicable reason, "Cinco de Mayo!" The weird outburst was over the top, even for Merla, and has become a hot topic of conversation in the community - so hot that on May 2, Merla had to offer some explanation for his zany behavior. The reason he went off the deep end, he told a standing-room-only crowd, was because he thought he saw a smirk on Mitchell's face that he interpreted as an insult to his mother. "No one insults my mother," he said. And criticized for using an expletive while haranguing Mitchell, Merla said he wasn't cussing at the cop, he was cussing because he just realized he had accidentally split his pants. "I stood up and ripped my pants and said, 'Oh sh-,' " Merla said. Thus, the bizarre headline in the Independent, and the even stranger story it accompanied. Nobody believed Merla of course, since his explanation is the political equivalent of blaming that bad smell on the dog - but you've got to give him points for creativity. He's certainly gonna need that kind of creativity when he has to explain himself at his corruption trial this October. I just hope U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie, the judge and the jury all have a wacky sense of humor. +++ As the child of parents who both died painful deaths from lung cancer and suffered the excruciating effects of harsh chemotherapy, I was happy to read in a story by The Associated Press last week that next month state lawmakers will consider a bill to legalize marijuana for people with debilitating medical conditions. Those conditions would include cancer, chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, glaucoma, HIV and AIDS, and persistent muscle spasms. The bill, proposed by Sen. Nicholas Scutari, will come up for discussion be-fore a Senate health panel June 8 and, if passed, would make New Jersey the 12th state to legalize marijuana for medicinal use, even though the federal government does not recognize those laws. And although the measure is opposed by the usual gang who say it's a smoke screen for generalized legalization, the notion is supported by many experts, including the National Academy of Sciences, which says pot can help people suffering chemotherapy-induced nausea and AIDS wasting. If you have supported a loved one with terminal cancer through chemotherapy, you well know the treatment commonly reduces the patient's appetite to the point of staggering weight loss (my father weighed 115 pounds when he died, my mother 90). You know that the currently available and legalized form of medical marijuana (an adulterated version of THC that seeks to stimulate the munchies) does not work. And you know, from experience, that it is nonsensical, and even cruel, to deny terminal patients anything that might make their lives easier, might make them more comfortable in their last months. The argument that allowing those patients access to marijuana might lead them to use harder drugs is specious to the point of insanity, since most of those patients are already receiving massive doses of addictive medication to alleviate pain. To suggest that a patient already receiving huge doses of morphine, OxyContin, oxycodone, Xanax or the like to manage pain will be threatened by a few tokes of marijuana to stimulate appetite is ludicrous. Carefully supervised, marijuana could be another important tool in the physician's box, and a meaningful comfort to patients suffering certain diseases. And if enough states legalize it for those humane uses, the federal government will eventually have to come around. That's why I support passage of this bill in New Jersey. I just wish marijuana had been more readily available to my mom and dad. +++ According to a Reuters news service story last week, a new study from the National Education Association shows half of new teachers in the U.S. are likely to quit within the first five years because of working conditions and low salaries. The study raises a couple of questions: First, why didn't those teachers go to work in a community like Middletown, Monmouth County, where many teacher salaries can make your eyeballs actually bug out of the sockets? And second, how many young teachers simply left the profession in disgust after being denied tenure after three years on the job? Guess we'll have to wait for the next study to find out. Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.