On his final day in office on Jan. 18, 2010, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine signed Senate Bill 119 into law. Known as the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (CUMMA), the new law created New Jersey’s medicinal marijuana program (MMP), permitting the use of medicinal cannabis to treat certain debilitating medical conditions set forth in the provisions of CUMMA. Under the subsequent administration of Governor Chris Christie, six New Jersey non-profit corporate entities were granted permits by the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) to operate alternative treatment centers (ATCs), also known as medicinal marijuana dispensaries. Two dispensaries would be permitted in each region of the State: North, Central and South New Jersey.
By 2015, 5,540 patients were registered in New Jersey’s MMP, and 335 caregivers had been authorized to purchase medicinal marijuana on behalf of those registered. In 2017, the number of registered patients had grown to 11,659 statewide, and continues to grow rapidly. This dramatic growth created concerns that the six existing ATCs would not be sufficient to satisfy the increase in demand for medicinal marijuana, and concerns about the restrictiveness of the list of debilitating medical conditions that the state determined medicinal marijuana would be permitted to treat became a focus for revision. In response, Governor Phil Murphy signed an Executive Order on Jan. 23, 2018, directing the New Jersey Department of Health and the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners (NJBME) to review the state’s existing medicinal marijuana program in order to remove what had become access barriers for patients suffering from illnesses that could be treated with medicinal marijuana.
Since the signing of that Executive Order, the NJDOH and the NJBME have evaluated the rules, regulations, operations and siting of dispensaries and cultivation facilities and analyzed the list of debilitating medical conditions for which medical marijuana may be authorized by a physician. Based on these evaluations and analysis, in March 2018, the NJDOH added five additional medical conditions to the list of conditions available for treatment with medical marijuana, and, in January 2019, the NJDOH added one additional condition. Since the addition of these conditions, the number of patients has significantly increased, bringing the total count of registered patients with the MMP to over 47,500 as of June 3, 2019.