Via Cannabis Business Executive
The New Jersey Cannabis Trade Association issued a report placing blame for the state’s slow growth in weed on the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
Just more than a year after beginning recreational cannabis sales, New Jersey’s legal weed industry is in a “doom loop” of slow licensing and a lack of enforcement that is causing it to stagnate, a marijuana trade group says.
The New Jersey Cannabis Trade Association, which represents the majority of cultivators and dispensaries in New Jersey, issued a report Tuesday placing blame for the state’s slow-growing marijuana industry on the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission, the agency that establishes and enforces regulations governing legal marijuana. The CRC, the report said, is “hindering the market’s potential” due to a protracted licensing process.
“We’re advocating starting with the removal of the bureaucracy,” said Todd Johnson, the group’s executive director. “We are making it difficult right at the point of entry for no reason.”
New Jersey could be losing as much as $1.8 million a year in potential tax revenue per location, as a result of delayed retail store openings, the report concludes. In addition, the NJCTA points to the proliferation of unregulated hemp-derived cannabinoids and the state’s minimal enforcement against illicit operators as reasons for slow industry growth.
The CRC has received 2,177 applications since it opened up the process for marijuana business licenses in December 2021. Of those, 1,399 applications have been approved, and about 400 are being processed, according to CRC executive director Jeff Brown. [Read More @ The Philadelphia Inquirer]
New Jersey’s weed industry is in a ‘doom loop,’ trade group says
