NJ Department of Health Announces Medical Marijuana Rule Changes
Additionally, the rule includes the following changes that will go into effect upon publication:
Additionally, the rule includes the following changes that will go into effect upon publication:
The biggest change will affect how permits are handed out to businesses and the industry will be divided into three groups: cultivators, manufacturers and retailers.
Eight years after approving medical cannabis, New Jersey is set to double its number of dispensaries throughout the state in 2019, selecting businesses to apply for licenses to grow and sell marijuana.
New Jersey’s medical marijuana market will need at least 15 additional cannabis cultivators in the next three years – even under a conservative growth scenario, according to information provided by the state’s MMJ regulatory agency.
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.
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.
“Because medicinal marijuana is not reimbursed by insurance and can be costly for patients, and because many of the patients in New Jersey’s program are either seniors or on government assistance and thus have fixed incomes, the high prices of the product are likely depressing demand,” the report said.
“Lowering prices should be an explicit policy goal of the Division of Medicinal Marijuana. Lowering prices is best accomplished by increasing competition, access and supply in the marketplace, with more options for patients to obtain the therapy.”
New Jersey health officials on Monday recommended a huge increase in the number of medicinal marijuana dispensaries, arguing that the current handful of so-called Alternative Treatment Centers won’t be nearly enough to meet surging demand.
The Department of Health said the state will need 50 to 90 of the centers in the next three years to keep up with the sharp growth in the number of people using marijuana for medical purposes. The proposed total would be at least eight times the current six dispensaries.
Fifty to 90 medical marijuana dispensaries will be needed in New Jersey in the next three years to keep up with the Medicinal Marijuana Program’s rapidly expanding patient population, according to a New Jersey Department of Health report issued today.
The Medicinal Marijuana Program’s Biennial Report released today shows adding more access points for patients to get therapy will reduce current prices and drive times, and geographically diversify the market.
P.L. 2009, c. 307, approved January 18, 2010, and codified at N.J.S.A. 24:6I-1 et seq., is the New Jersey
Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (the Act). The Act is the enabling authority for the Division of
Medicinal Marijuana within the Department of Health.
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