US (NJ): State takes steps to expand MMJ program

New Jersey has taken steps recently to welcome more patients into its Medicinal Marijuana Program by recommending that dozens of additional conditions qualify for legal cannabis treatment. Officials have also given the go-ahead to the state’s sixth dispensary, in the Meadowlands region of Hudson County, which is slated to open in the coming months.

The state’s Medicinal Marijuana Review Panel outlined its recommendations in a July letter to the state Department of Health, urging Commissioner Cathleen D. Bennett to allow those in pain as a result of various spinal injuries or back strain, neuropathy, arthritis, autoimmune disorders like Lupus, and more to qualify for the program. Public comment on the recommendation will be accepted until late September, and there will be several public hearings before Bennett is required to make a decision within the next six months.

The list was informed by passionate testimony given by patients, family members, and marijuana advocates at the panel’s meeting in February, who begged the group to expand the program beyond the dozen chronic or fatal illnesses it has covered since 2010, when former Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed the law establishing the system just before leaving office. Critics have complained that New Jersey’s program, long considered one of the most restrictive in the nation, was slow to get up and running under Gov. Chris Christie and has not evolved in the years since.

Read more at NJ Spotlight