New Jersey may postpone implementing medical marijuana law

TRENTON - Patients seeking legal access to medical marijuana might have to wait 90 more days under legislation being drafted in response to a request from the Christie administration.

Sen. Nicholas Scutari (D., Union), a prime sponsor of the medical-marijuana law, said Wednesday he intends to introduce legislation Monday to grant the state an additional 90 days to implement the 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 added: "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."

The governor's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, said, "We appreciate [Scutari's] support to our request."

But medical-marijuana proponents argued against a postponement.

"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."