On July 2, 2019, Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis Act into law. The law set a new foundation for New Jersey’s medical cannabis program — one that is patient centered, compassionate, and scientifically focused. Since the beginning of the Murphy Administration — when only 17,000 patients were enrolled — the program has enrolled 63,000 new patients for a total of 80,000 New Jersey residents who are getting the help they need.
Prior to this week's announcement, regulators had capped the total number of available dispensaries in the state to no more than twelve.
The agency acknowledged in a statement, "Due to the growing patient population served by the Medicinal Marijuana Program over the course of the 2018 and 2019, and the projected future expansion outlined in the Department's Biennial Report, the Department has determined that additional ATCs are necessary to meet the needs of the population of qualified patients."
Eight years after approving medical cannabis, New Jersey is set to double its number of dispensaries throughout the state in 2019, selecting businesses to apply for licenses to grow and sell marijuana.
It’s tempting and easy to blame former Governor Chris Christie for everything that’s wrong with New Jersey’s medical marijuana program. Christie’s from the old school and was generous with contempt towards anyone who begged to differ.
Christie’s predecessor Jon Corzine signed medical marijuana legislation into law with the clock winding down on his term. So it was left to Christie to implement and regulate a medical cannabis program he never wanted.
P.L. 2009, c. 307, approved January 18, 2010, and codified at N.J.S.A. 24:6I-1 et seq., is the New Jersey
Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (the Act). The Act is the enabling authority for the Division of
Medicinal Marijuana within the Department of Health.