Jeff Brown

"There's a level of frustration here at the Commission, certainly with me, certainly with staff and others, that you know there's an effort to pressure us to move forward in a way that's not compliant with the law. And that's just simply not going to happen," says Cannabis Regulatory Commission Executive Director Jeff Brown.

In New Jersey, the recreational marijuana law directed the state to begin sales Feb. 22 – six months after rules and regulations were to be established by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission.

The state started taking business applications in December and, earlier this month, approved Florida-based Metrc to manage its seed-to-sale tracking system.

But Jeff Brown, the commission’s executive director, said there are obstacles to launching next month, including a lack of municipal buy-in, NJ.com reported.

The CRC opened up for applications for recreational cannabis cultivators, manufacturers and testing labs on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. By 1 p.m. the application platform was averaging 155 new users per hour.“We are happy to reach this milestone,” said CRC Executive Director Jeff Brown. “Applications are coming in, the platform is performing well, and we can officially mark the launch of the state’s recreational cannabis industry.

New Jersey is getting more medical marijuana dispensaries. The Cannabis Regulatory Commission has awarded provisional licenses to 30 companies located throughout the state. That will double the number of the state’s retail locations.

Executives from the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC) at the NJ League of Municipalities last week provided an overview of the newly adopted regulations to implement the legalization of adult recreational use of marijuana. The panel session, moderated by the president of the NJ League of Municipalities, Clinton Mayor Janice Kovach, featured CRC chair Dianna Houenou and executive director Jeff Brown. 

The wait is finally over.

At the Friday meeting, the commission’s executive director Jeff Brown proposed licensing 10 cultivation sites, double the initial number, to meet patient demand.

All of the businesses given licenses Friday are certified minority- or women-owned, Brown said.

And one of them, Etain New Jersey LLC is comprised of nearly 75% percent females. In fact, Etain is also New York’s only women-owned, family-run and vertically integrated cannabis company.

“Nurse practitioners and physician assistants are an integral part of medical practices and are involved in patient care, diagnosis, and prescribing medicine,” Cannabis Regulatory Commission Executive Director Jeff Brown told the news outlet. “We are excited to implement the process for them to participate in the program to provide greater access to patients and to make the process more efficient for care provider offices.”

The change is part of Jake Honig’s law, which expanded New Jersey’s medical cannabis program and has been rolled out over the course of the last two years.

Despite the opposition, the commission did approve a second marijuana cultivation site in Lafayette for Harmony Foundation of New Jersey, which currently grows and dispenses medical cannabis in Secaucus. The company also has planned to open two additional dispensaries in Hoboken and Jersey City, which could draw customers from New York.

According to Headset, the Seattle-based marijuana analytics firm whose latest forecast said cannabis sales in general could surpass $30 billion by the end of 2022, edibles account for about 10 percent of the legal retail market.

Gen Z and Millennials are now the largest consumers of weed and cannabis products, along with women, and even if flower and concentrates are most popular among these demographics, there’s still a big market for edibles.

The state Cannabis Regulatory Commission will only partially meet its deadline. CRC chairwoman Dianna Houenou said the agency has “begun putting pen to paper” on draft rules that might change and that will not address every topic included in the state’s legalization law.

“Due to the timelines that are dictated in statute, developing regulations on every single topic that’s identified in the CREAMM Act is simply not very practicable,” Houenou said of the 166-page Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act.