From 146 to six.
That’s the task ahead of Jeff Brown, the assistant commissioner for the Department of Health in charge of the medicinal marijuana program, as his department must review the applications for the new licenses that will be granted for six new alternative treatment centers (ATCs).
It’s not all on him – there will be a committee that will comb through the 146 applications from 105 organizations over the next two months and evaluate the several hundreds of pages of information in each application. The winners are scheduled to be announced in early November.
But within the burgeoning cannabis industry in New Jersey, Brown in many ways is the face of the state’s program that has grown exponentially since Gov. Phil Murphy expanded the eligible conditions after taking office earlier this year.
It was Brown who outlined the application process to more that 800 interested applicants at a mandatory pre-application conference hosted by the department on Aug. 9 at the War Memorial in Trenton.