EDITOR’S NOTE: NJ Cannabis Insider is co-hosting a Cannabis Career Fair & Business Expo on April 5 at Stockton University. (Students free.) Tickets here.
New Jersey on Thursday is expected to reach a significant milestone in its long effort to sell recreational use cannabis to adults.
The Cannabis Regulatory Commission that oversees the nascent industry is expected to approve the first batch of conditional license applications for cultivation and manufacturing at its monthly meeting on Thursday.
In addition, five alternative treatment centers currently serving medical cannabis patients that applied to expand to sell to the adult-use market are also expected to be approved.
If approved by the commission, the five centers will be the only facilities selling cannabis initially to both the medical and recreational market.
The approved cultivators and manufacturers are expected to grow crop and build out their facilities over the course of six to nine months before they can start selling cannabis, say experts. Their conditional licenses represent a social equity measure that gives an early priority to smaller cultivators and manufacturers.
The commission on Thursday is expected to set the start of the 30-day notification period for actual sales of cannabis to begin at the five alternative treatment centers.
That would make late April or early May as the earliest for sales to non-medical customers to begin. That aligns with Gov. Phil Murphy’s revised fiscal year 2022 state budget proposal, which now anticipates $4 million in cannabis state sales revenue by June 30.
“The state has been waiting on this for a long time,” said Robert DiPisa, co-chair of the Cannabis Law Group at Hackensack-based Cole Schotz. “It’s going to be a historic announcement, and it will be a big day for New Jersey.”
But DiPisa also offered words of caution regarding the five centers set to be approved on Thursday: There’s more to be proved to the panel.
“The CRC has stressed from the beginning that they will not approve the sale of adult use cannabis unless they are shown that the operator has enough supply to meet the medical demands of the patients first. So first and foremost, the focus is that the patients are getting the medication they need, and secondary to that is the adult use market.”
The five alternative treatment centers were deemed by the panel to have submitted complete applications with the necessary municipal approvals to move forward. Their 90-day review process concluded on March 15.
Murphy signed the massive 216-page bill on Feb. 22, 2021, and the state has been slowly moving toward this moment.
The first wave of license applications began on Dec. 15 from cannabis growers, product manufacturers and testing labs. Among the applications that came in then were from about a dozen alternative treatment centers, including the five up for approval on Thursday.
The Cannabis Regulatory Commission missed a self-imposed deadline of Feb. 22 over what Executive Director Jeff Brown said were issues with incomplete applications from the alternative treatment centers.
The commission on March 15 began accepting applications from dispensary owners – those interested in opening a retail outlet to sell recreational cannabis to adults. On Wednesday, the commission said it had received 272 applications so far.
Conditional license applicants, impact zone business applicants, and those that qualify for priority consideration will have their applications at the front of the line for consideration, according to the panel.
A key goal behind the legalization of adult recreational cannabis is to right wrongs of the country’s war on drugs that disproportionally affected members of Black and brown communities.
Under the panel’s rules, social equity businesses, diversely-owned businesses, micro businesses, and conditional license applicants will be prioritized in their review and scoring.
The issue of how to best use revenue from cannabis sales to go toward restorative justice programs has been the subject of regional hearings this month by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission. The hearings attracted several dozen residents who provided input.
The third and final hearing was last Wednesday for residents of South Jersey via Zoom.
Brendon Robinson, co-founder and vice president of 420 NJ Events, a Black-owned cannabis lifestyle brand that advocates on behalf of minorities affected by the war on drugs, told the panel he saw what minor marijuana convictions wrought on his family.
“I sat back and watched my father go to prison for cannabis,” said Robinson, who was born and raised in Chesilhurst, a borough in Camden County. “My older brothers, my uncles. I’m literally the only male in my family who has not been incarcerated for cannabis possession or distribution,” Robinson told the panel.
“Before we explore cannabis as a business, we need to understand cannabis as a culture,” said Robinson. “We need to understand the stigma that still plagues the cannabis industry to this day.”
The commissioners said they plan to take the data they gathered from the regional hearings and produce a report to the Legislature on where to best invest cannabis dollars.
Thursday’s hearing starts at 1 p.m. and can be viewed on the CRC’s ZOOM Link: https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1605479630
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Suzette Parmley may be reached at sparmley@njadvancemedia.com or follow her on Twitter: @SuzParmley