Devra Karlebach, CEO of GTI New Jersey, understands that winning one of the six Alternative Treatment Center licenses from the Department of Health was actually the easy part.
“Now the real work begins,” says Karlebach of building and opening facilities in Paterson during an interview with NJ Cannabis Media.
The immediate steps are zoning.
The latest phase consolidates the hold some of America’s mightiest cannabis companies have on the state.
PharmaCann, which was recently acquired by MedMen (the so-called Tiffany’s of Cannabis) in a blockbuster $682 million deal, added two permits, bringing its total number of retail outlets in the state to nine.
The 146 applications were reviewed by a six-person committee consisting of four NJ Department of Health (DOH) representatives and one each from the departments of agriculture and treasury. Their expertise included medical marijuana, ATC regulation, lab testing, plant science, diversity and procurement.
This selection process was an objective and data-driven in which the committee scored the applications before the DOH chose the top scorers in each region.
Some applicants applied for more than one region but the department only allowed one applicant per region.
Submitted by njlegalizeme on Tue, 12/18/2018 - 12:35
"Six very strong applicants were selected, including minority-owned and women-owned businesses," Health Commissioner Shereef Elnahal said. "We'll meet with them early next year to refine their timetable for growing product and opening their doors."
The entities listed below have received initial approval from the Department of Health for their applications to operate an alternative treatment center.
An approved application does not comprise a license, permit or other approval to open and operate an alternative treatment center. Permission to operate is granted to successful applicants only after DOH completes a series of reviews and inspections of their facilities, procedures and products.
The 146 applications were reviewed by a six-person committee consisting of four DOH representatives and one each from the Departments of Agriculture and Treasury. Their expertise included medical marijuana, ATC regulation, lab testing, plant science, diversity and procurement. Prior to scoring the applications, committee members received implicit bias training from the state’s Chief Diversity Officer to ensure an impartial selection process.
To help facilitate social change, the commission will give preference to cannabis business who apply for licenses in what the bill labels “impact zones,” which are defined as areas “for which past criminal marijuana enterprises contributed to higher concentrations of law enforcement activity, unemployment, and poverty.” An impact zone must have a population at least 120,000 people, a high crime index as measured by the State Police, an annual average unemployment rate of 15 percent, and rank in the top 33 percent for marijuana- or hashish-related arrests.
A Morris County start-up is planning to invest $1.5 million to open a medical marijuana dispensary two blocks away from St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in the Lackawanna neighborhood.
Hillview Med has leased the 5,000-square-foot former Concentra Medical Center building on Levine Street for the dispensary, said Ken Vande Vrede, chief executive officer for the startup on Saturday afternoon.
Former NFL lineman Leonard Marshall talked about opening a medical marijuana dispensary inside a former Concentra Medical Center. The 5,000-square foot building is in Paterson’s rundown Second Ward. Marshall’s a spokesperson for Hillview Med, one of 50 applicants for a dispensary license in North Jersey.
“We’ll create some economic change here in Paterson. And I think that, if you take a look around at the landscape of things here, it could use kind of an uplift,” he said.