New Jersey begins accepting applications for recreational cannabis licenses

The state of New Jersey finally started accepting applications for recreational cannabis licenses on December 15. The Cannabis Regulatory Commission (CRC) announced that within four hours of the application opening, 500 people had submitted their applications, with 635 accounts of. The end of the day.

“We are excited to reach this milestone,” said Jeff Brown, Executive Director of CRC. “Applications are in, the platform is doing well, and we can officially celebrate the start of the state’s recreational cannabis industry. The licensing and operation of breeders, manufacturers and test laboratories will set the framework and create the offer for retailers who will begin licensing in March 2022. “

The CRC also noted that the review gave the highest priority to “Social Equity Companies, Diverse Owners, Micro-Enterprises and Conditional License Applicants”. This includes applicants previously convicted of cannabis crime, living in “economically deprived areas”, or meeting the criteria of minority, female, or disabled veteran owned businesses.

After Governor Phil Murphy signed three cannabis laws earlier this year, the CRC created the Office of Minority, Disabled Veterans and Women Business Development to deliver on the pledge to support diversity. A category has also been created for applicants from the social equity business sector, which includes “people who have lived in an economically disadvantaged area or have been convicted of cannabis offenses. These areas are defined as places where individuals earn 80 percent or less of the median household income in the state ($ 90,444) and also have an uninsured rate one to one and a half times higher than rates across the state of .com, according to the NJ.

The CRC hosted a New Jersey State League of Municipalities conference in Atlantic City in mid-November to discuss the details of this process. There, SFB chairman Dianna Houenou confirmed that accepted applications will be granted either with a conditional or an annual license.

“The annual license is the be-all and end-all of what we normally think when someone applies for a license. It gives business owners the authority to operate cannabis operations year round, ”said Houenou. “The conditional license is designed to give applicants additional time to get all of their ducks in a row … they will then have 120 days to meet the additional requirements for the annual license.”

Houenou also talked about how conditional license applications would be prioritized over annual licenses. “If you look at the whole country, you can see in the past that the need for property control has been an obstacle to a number of applicants trying to do business [a cannabis] Business … We have decided to reduce this burden as much as possible. ”

Despite the promise of a fair consideration of diversity in recreational cannabis licensing, there have been some recent concerns about licensing considerations for medicinal cannabis growers. According to NJ Advance Media, most of the recently issued licenses went to white women, which led some applicants to wonder if they actually received additional “points” during the evaluation process for being a minority applicant. Brown addressed the concerns. “In the eight months since the CRC was founded, we’ve done important work started by the Department of Health to increase supply and give patients additional access to the drug market,” he said. “Now we’ve started accepting recreational cannabis business applications under our new rules that prioritize equity.”

Al Harrington, former NBA athlete and owner of Viola Brands, was one of the minority applicants who were not granted a New Jersey license. Harrington’s candidate writer Jamil Taylor told NJ.com how difficult it is for black-owned businesses to grow in the cannabis space. “It’s sad how they structured the process, but that shows how valuable these licenses are,” said Taylor. “They limit vertical integration, but they have already given most white companies vertical integration.”