EDITOR’S NOTE: NJ Cannabis Insider, NJ.com’s B2B cannabis industry trade journal and events vertical, is hosting a business meetup Feb. 17 in Jersey City. Tickets are limited.
Like many of New Jersey’s residents who voted to legalize weed for adult consumers, the state’s largest growers say they’ve been eager for the market to open.
In fact, they say they’re bursting at the seams with marijuana — and now, they’re worried they’ll have to take drastic measures if things don’t speed up.
“I hate to say this, but we may have to start destroying product, and we may have to start potentially letting people go because part of the anticipation is you ramp up your staffing, as well,” said James Leventis, an executive for Verano New Jersey, which has a cultivation and processing facility in Readington Township and three stores in Elizabeth, Lawrence Township and Neptune.
“You’re hired for a job with the idea that this market will develop,” said Leventis, the company’s vice president of Compliance & Government Affairs. “I’m very concerned we will continue to see these delays. It’s looking very stark right now.”
Just like any other organic material, cannabis starts to decompose after time. Even after it’s properly stored, after six months weed can get stale, loose its aroma and potency. In worst-case scenarios, the pot can get moldy.
For months, Verano along with fellow New Jersey Cannabis Trade Association members have been pressuring the state to allow them to sell to the public. The strategy has increased over the last month.
So what’s the hold up?
In no uncertain terms, the state agency created to govern the nascent cannabis industry — the Cannabis Regulatory Commission — has said these same companies demanding to open have yet to comply with stipulations in the marijuana law.
“The law has been in place since Feb. 22, 2021,” said Jeff Brown, the CRC’s executive director at last week’s public meeting. “It has noted clearly that alternative treatment centers [like Verano] need three things: municipal approval, relevant necessary supply to be able to serve their patient base, and operational capacity to continue to serve and even expand access.”
The law Gov. Phil Murphy signed last year said the market could open six months after the commission adopted rules for the industry, which occurred Aug. 19 — making mid-February 2022 a self-imposed deadline to open. The law also said the commission is required to give 30 days notice before sales commence. Meeting both deadlines looks grim.
Verano, which opened in February 2020 as an alternative treatment center catering to the state’s medical marijuana population, said it submitted its application to expand to sell to the adult recreational market over a month ago and is awaiting approval from the CRC.
In a powerpoint presentation at the Jan. 27 CRC meeting, Brown said eight of the 12 licensed growers and sellers have applied to serve the adult-use market as well the medicinal program.
“As of the last review that I did and staff assisted me with, none of the ones we received were complete,” Brown said.
Some don’t have permission yet to sell recreational weed from the host municipality, Brown said. Some have not convincingly shown they have enough product to satisfy patients’ needs and the broader market. They also need to show a commitment to operate in a way that reflects the commission’s core values of social equity and safety, he said.
RELATED: Want more legal weed news? Subscribe to NJ Cannabis Insider for premium content
NJCTA members include 10 current and future medicinal marijuana license holders, including the state’s largest grower and seller, Curaleaf. Brown didn’t mention it by name, but he said the largest producer in the state has not yet submitted proof that any of the communities will permit adult-use sales. Curaleaf has retail shops in Bellmawr, Bordentown and Edgewater Park.
Patrik Jonsson, regional president Northeast for Curaleaf, which has two cultivation facilities in Bellmawr and Winslow, said his firm was in the same predicament as Verano. NJ Advance Media toured Curaleaf’s facility in Winslow on Jan. 19, where reporters were shown one of several vaults lined with cannabis bins from ceiling to floor.
“We obviously prepared and did pretty aggressive hiring to make sure we had enough product for this [Feb. 22, 2022] date,” Jonsson said. “If this date doesn’t happen there is concern.
“We’re overflowing. We now have six vaults. We were planning to have one, and we built all these temporary vaults that are bursting at the seams,” he said. “Flower gets old after a few months. We certainly can’t keep stockpiling that, from both a quality and pure space perspective.”
Jonsson said if Curaleaf cannot start selling before spring time, it will have to start disposing of its older weed.
Leventis, of Verano, said New Jersey’s recreational cannabis process is quite different from how things occurred in his home state, Illinois. He said regulators there “flipped the switch” when they said they would on Jan. 1, 2020, after a six-month ramp up.
“The tenor has been that all the ATCs need to ramp up their production because there’s not ample supply out there for the patients,” Leventis said, referring to the alternative treatment centers. “It’s actually quite the opposite.
“We’re going to have to slow down production because we’re producing too much, we don’t have anywhere to store it, and we don’t have a market to sell it.”
“There is a level of frustration here at the commission,” Brown had said at the CRC meeting. “There is an effort to pressure us to move forward in a way that is not compliant with the law. That is not going to happen.”
Meanwhile, Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, the chief sponsor of the legislation to open up the adult-use cannabis market, said the CRC should try to meet the deadline, and urged it to seek the help of the Legislature.
“This process needs to move faster,” Scutari told NJ Advance Media over the weekend. “The people of New Jersey have spoken. By a 2 to 1 margin, New Jersey voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment making marijuana legal in New Jersey.
“It has been over a year since that vote of the people took place. The state government needs to get this done as required by law to get these licenses approved,” said Scutari. “The legislature is prepared to assist in this effort in any way we can.”
Murphy, who made legalizing adult cannabis a centerpiece of his 2017 gubernatorial run, said missing the Feb. 22 deadline wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“I’d rather get it right than get it fast,” Murphy told NJ Advance Media on Sunday from Washington D.C., where he was attending the National Governors Association winter conference. “They’re [CRC] doing a really good job. They want to do a job that’s different and better than any other state that’s ever done it, in particular as it relates to addressing inequities, which has been a central theme of mine.”
Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com
NJ Advance Media staff writers Susan K. Livio and Jonathan D. Salant contributed to this report.
Suzette Parmley may be reached at sparmley@njadvancemedia.com or follow her on Twitter: @SuzParmley