So now there's a lawsuit. Maybe that's what it will take to get the state to stop dragging its feet on the medical-marijuana program.

Come to think of it, maybe that's exactly the cover Gov. Chris Christie is looking for - a judge ordering him to get the medical-marijuana program under way.

Clearly, Christie, the king of political cover, would rather incur the wrath of medical-marijuana proponents than the wrath of conservative Republican voters who might have something to say about who becomes vice president or president someday.

New Jersey's Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, which set up the strictest medical-marijuana program in the nation, was signed by former Gov. Jon S. Corzine more than two years ago. But not one of the six so-called alternative treatment centers allowed under the law has opened. Nor has the state completed the required registry of physicians who can prescribe the drug, or the registries of approved patients and caregivers.

This week, Richard Caporusso, of Medford, and his doctor, Jeffrey Pollack, a Mays Landing physician, filed a lawsuit claiming the Christie administration has sabotaged the program and caused undue suffering by failing to get it under way.