TRENTON — Sale of recreational marijuana from medical dispensaries was supposed to start Feb. 22 but the deadline will not be met, according to the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC), which has yet to issue a license.
The CRC wants to ensure medical marijuana users do not face shortages of cannabis due to it being sold for recreational use.
During a public meeting Jan. 27, CRC Executive Director Jeff Brown said the commission began accepting applications in December for cultivators, manufacturers and testing labs. As of the end of January, 336 applications had been received and the CRC was moving through the review process.
Brown said 87 percent of the applications were for conditional licenses and 13 percent for annual licenses. Cultivation licenses make up 63 percent of the applications, with 33 percent for manufacturing and just under 1 percent for testing labs.
A conditional license is a provisional license with an abbreviated application process that gives applicants more time to get property or municipal approval.
An annual license allows applicants to begin operations after passing CRC inspections. Conditional license holders, if approved, would have up to 5.5 months to apply to convert to the annual license via a conditional conversion application.
The state had received 115 social equity business applications, 154 diversity-owned applications and 34 impact zone applications. Brown said the commission’s goal was a 90-day review turnaround but noted it was unlikely to occur in the early days of the CRC.
He said dispensary applications were in the investigative stage. Brown said dispensaries have 12 months to become operational from the time of their award.
Alternate Treatment Centers (ATCs) by law do not need to go through the formal application process to begin recreational cannabis sales. They must prove they have adequate supply to serve both patients and recreational consumers.
ATCs must also prove they can expand to recreational dispensing without affecting service to patients. Brown said ATCs must have approval of the municipality where they are located.
He said the CRC has received eight certification applications from ATCs. Brown said none of the applications from ATCs was complete and most lacked municipal approval.
“There’s a lack of specificity of measures to ensure patients will continue to have adequate access to dispensaries once we turn on recreational sales,” he said. “When we turn on recreational sales and there are limited outlets to get recreational cannabis, they are going to be crowded and we want to see specific measures to ensure that patients can continue to be served first.”
License applications for retail cannabis stores will be accepted beginning March 15.
By JACK FICHTER/Sentinel staff