Six years after the Christie administration selected a half-dozen nonprofits to produce cannabis for the state’s medical marijuana program, the last one of the bunch on Thursday received a permit to begin growing its first crop, Health Commissioner Cathleen Bennett announced Thursday.
Foundation Harmony will operate from a 10,000-square-foot indoor greenhouse and retail establishment in a commercial and industrial section of Secaucus by the end of 2017, according to Bennett and a dispensary spokeswoman.
Health Commissioner Cathleen Bennett will have the final say on whether the list of medical conditions should be added to the medical marijuana program.
“After two years of designing and constructing this state-of-the-art facility, we are excited to finally put it into action, and to serve New Jersey’s patients with the purest and most effective medical marijuana,” Shaya Brodchandel the president and CEO, said in a statement. “We have selected strains which we believe are well suited for New Jersey medical patient’s conditions and to our unique growing system.”
Gov. Chris Christie announced the future permit holders in 2011 in a process plagued by a cumbersome review process under a governor who still suspects that medical marijuana is a back-door attempt at full legalization.
Every dispensary applicant has undergone a long review and complicated state and local approval process, but Harmony Foundation struggled more than the rest pulling its operation together, as partners and investors came and went.
Brodchandel, 30, is new to the cannabis industry, but brings his knowledge of working in the highly-regulated industry of nuclear medical manufacturing, dispensary spokeswoman Leslie Hoffman said. He is also a real estate developer, and has been attached to the dispensary since 2015, she added.
Brodchandel will sit on the dispensary’s board of directors with, Irving Langer, founder of E&M Associates, a New York real estate investment and management company, Marina Karavas, who was listed in Harmony’s application to the state in 2011, and Elizabeth Hovav.
Medical marijuana advocates welcomed the news of the latest provider.
“It’s great that patients will have another location to access their medicine, especially patients in that area who might not be able to get to other (dispensaries),” Roseanne Scotti, director of the Drug Policy Alliance of New Jersey, a lobbying and advocacy group that helped get the 2010 law passed.
New Jersey’s 13,200 registered patients are served by five nonprofit dispensaries, also known as alternative treatment centers, in Montclair, Woodbridge, Cranberry, Bellmawr and Egg Harbor.
Ken Wolski, executive director of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana – New Jersey, who has been critical of the slow pace of the state program, said he sent a note to the dispensary operator wish(ing) you every success in meeting the needs of the medical marijuana patients in this state.”
The dispensary will have the capacity to serve 4,000 patients in the state, Brodchandel’s announcement said.
With the permit to grow delivered Thursday, the dispensary will begin producing a crop that will be tested by the state health department for safety.
Once the testing and an onsite inspection are complete, the state will notify registered patients by mail of the new dispensary’s availability, according to Bennett’s statement.
credit:420intel.com
