Patients seeking legal access to medical marijuana may have to wait 90 more days, under legislation being drafted by a prime sponsor of the medical marijuana law in response to a request for more time by the Christie administration.
Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D., Linden) said Wednesday he intends to introduce legislation Monday to grant the state 90 more days to implement the medical marijuana law, which was supposed to go into effect in July with marijuana distribution to start by October.
Christie had sought a postponement of six to 12 months to ensure that proper regulations and controls could be put in place.
Scutari said he was convinced that the health commissioner has been working on the issue and said, 'I want to help them get this together so we can have a successful program without the snafus."
"I want to be reasonable, I want to give the administration the opportunity to promulgate the rules and enact a bill in a good manner and I'm hopeful we'll continue to make progress."
Medical marijuana proponents argued that a delay should not be necessary.
"We really don't think any delay is necessary," said Ken Wolski, executive director of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New Jersey. "We have regulations that we could suggest that are ready to go July 1 so we still don't think that a delay is necessary to implement this law."
