New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration says the medical marijuana program has doubled to 34,000 patients since he took office.
The Health Department said Monday that the majority of the 17,000 new patients have one of five medical conditions Murphy made eligible for coverage in March.
The department also said 800 doctors, up from 500, are now participating in the program.
A medical marijuana dispensary proposed for a former bank property on Adamston Road was not approved by the township’s Board of Adjustment Wednesday night. With testimony and what is expected to be significant public comment ahead, a more than three hour-long board meeting was adjourned until Nov. 19.
Recognizing that informed consumers are vital to a healthy marketplace, the New Jersey Department of Health is allowing the six permitted Alternative Treatment Centers (ATCs) to publicly list medical marijuana prices on their websites and social media accounts.
The Department of Health had notified applicants that it expected to announce the successful applicants on Nov. 1, but additional time is needed to complete a full review of these applications. Each of the reviewers must read more than 40,000 pages of material (each application averages 300 pages). The reviewers are working as quickly as possible, and the Department will announce the successful applicants as soon as the review is complete,” the department wrote in a release.
In order to apply as an ATC, the applicant must have submitted various documentation and criteria to the DOH before the deadline. This included the ATC’s proposed legal name and address of the facility, the applicant’s legal status, the Certificate and Articles of Incorporation, any and all By-Laws for the corporation, any and all organizing documents for the association, and a certificate of good standing issued by the New Jersey Secretary of State.
Since federal regulators began reinterpreting the United States’ position on marijuana in 2014, the number of state-sanctioned marijuana-related businesses (MRBs) has exploded, leaving MRBs with an abundance of cash, but not many places to deposit it. The New Jersey Department of Health approved six alternative treatment centers (ATCs), which pro-vide qualifying patients with medicinal marijuana and related paraphernalia. These ATCs are a type of MRB. On July 16 of this year, the department released a request for applications (RFA) for up to six additional ATCs.
It should come as no surprise, but more than a third of the 146 applicants for the six alternative treatment centers made sure they had a Jersey connection front and center.
With the New Jersey Department of Health awarding 50 of the 1,000 points available on the scored part of the application to “evidence of the ATC Entity’s support for or ties to communities in New Jersey,” 56 of the applicants made sure they had some Jersey reference in their name.
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The state Department of Health last week waived the rule that restricted the six medical marijuana providers in New Jersey from selling the cartridges. The Department has already received requests for permission from two providers to start producing and selling those products.
Curaleaf New Jersey, the Bellmawr-based dispensary, will start selling its cartridges on Friday, the company said Thursday night.
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.