WHO: Medical marijuana patients and advocates
WHAT: Protest to raise awareness of the need for home cultivation emergency relief especially regarding approval of qualifying condition Opioid Use Disorder
WHEN: Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 12:00 pm (Die-In at 1:11 pm)
WHERE: NJ State Capital Building Annex 165 West State St., Trenton, New Jersey 08608
WHY: Failure to allow common sense, affordable home cultivation access in the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act
“The expansion of the state’s medical marijuana program is a good thing because more patients will have access to the supply that helps ease the pain they suffer every day.
“Because the new centers will be involved in segmented markets of growing, cultivating, processing and dispensing medical marijuana, I am confident there will be great economic opportunities for women-owned businesses, minority-owned businesses and veteran-owned businesses. The new ATCs must provide opportunities for these important segments of our society.
5. What‘s your next step to grow your marijuana business?
I‘m in the process of opening a new dispensary in Adams County that will serve customers in Arvada and north Denver.
I want to expand the business in other states. We applied for a medical marijuana license in New Jersey, but didn‘t get it. We are still exploring markets in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. We want to go there because we have friends there.
Michigan and Canada also are on our radar.
If New Jersey legalizes recreational marijuana, a move that’s been discussed for months and has a new deadline, roughly 100 new cannabis cultivators would be needed, according to an estimate from state officials.
That’s in addition to the 35 or so growers needed to supply the expected expansion of the medical cannabis program.
According to radio station New Jersey 101.5, budget documents provided by the state health department estimate the recreational market would need about 2 million square feet of cannabis cultivation space.
New Jersey Medical Marijuana Patients Pay about 300 Percent more than Colorado recreational program as an example. An average ounce in Colorado cost roughly $100 out the door. In New Jersey an average ounce cost $464. New Jersey Medical Marijuana Patients do not have access for much needed medication such as edibles, tincture, and flower of all strands to treat underlying conditions. New Jersey has over 44000 patients. New Jersey only has six dispensaries currently of the six locations only two of them have extraction licenses.
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.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s latest plan to legalize recreational marijuana has until May to pass the legislature. If it doesn’t pass, Murphy will focus on expanding medical marijuana.
In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Finance, the governor said members of his administration are working with lawmakers to tweak the legislation that would legalize recreational weed, which up until now appeared dead. Expanding access to marijuana was one of Murphy’s 2017 gubernatorial campaign promises.
The council has flip-flopped on the issue several times. In August, the council passed a resolution that welcomed and supported medical marijuana dispensaries. However, the actual land use ordinance to allow such facilities couldn’t get enough votes at two previous council meetings.
Days after Gov. Phil Murphy shelved a plan to drastically expand the state’s existing medical marijuana program, the Democratic governor said he will give lawmakers until May to pass the contested legislation or he will resume his efforts on expanding access to medicinal cannabis.
“We’re not going to wait around a lot,” Murphy said at an unrelated event in Saddle Brook early March 28.
Efforts to legalize recreational marijuana use in New Jersey have stalled, but not efforts to keep a legal marijuana farm out of a suburban bedroom community in Morris County.
Residents of two towns implored members of the Planning Board on Monday to join their resistance to a medical cannabis cultivation farm proposed to operate on the former Hamilton Farms property, which borders their neighborhoods.