New Jersey’s Medical Marijuana Patients Suffer Under Chris Christie

By
Kristen Gwynne

New Jersey’s dismal medical marijuana program includes just six dispensaries and twelve qualifying conditions. Stifled by state restrictions, the market for medical marijuana in the garden state is short on product, and patients are paying the price in high costs for medication. Democrats looking to loosen-up industry rules introduced a bill adding diagnoses like PTSD and glaucoma to the list of qualifying conditions on Monday but the state’s anti-marijuana Republican Governor Chris Christie says he will not allow access to expand on his watch.

“The reason why it hasn’t gotten the response it’s gotten in other states is because ours is a truly medical-based program for only people who have true illnesses that require medicinal marijuana,” Christie said Monday, “Other states have programs that are faux medical-marijuana programs that allow for recreational use.”

In a report on the state’s medical marijuana program, Bloomberg News points out that patients struggle to afford the $200 identification card necessary to enroll in the program. Once they’re in the program, they meet its steep prices. In March, the average cost of medical weed in the state—$489 an ounce—is higher than the US street price, which High Times found averages $253 per ounce.

A political consultant and medical marijuana patient in New Jersey, Jay Lassiter, told Bloomberg that he pays an “insane” $400 or $500 a month on the medication he uses to manage side effects of HIV medication. “That’s a car payment, or enough to put a kid through private school,” he told the business outlet.

Lassiter is not likely to find a compassionate ear from Christie, who delayed and tightened the state’s medical pot program upon taking office.

 “We don’t anticipate any significant expansion during the Christie administration,” Ken Wolski, executive director of the Trenton-based Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey, told Bloomberg, “As a matter of fact, we’ve pretty much abandoned our efforts.”

Christie’s antagonistic relationship with the marijuana industry is well-established: He said during his now-defunct campaign for the presidency that he would enforce federal prohibition of marijuana in states that legalized for recreational use, and has called tax revenue from legal weed “blood money.”

 

Kristen Gwynne

By
Kristen Gwynne

Recent Posts

Research Shows Some Rolling Papers Have High Levels of Heavy Metals

A recent study shows that many rolling papers and cones have elevated levels of potentially…

22 hours ago

MedMen Files for Bankruptcy

The once prominent cannabis company has now entered receivership, and its assets and operations will…

22 hours ago

States with Adult-Use Pot Saw Decrease in Alcohol Use, No Increase in Teen Substance Abuse

Adult-use cannabis laws and sales were not associated with an overall increase in teen substance…

22 hours ago

New Mexico Governor Calls Homeland Security Secretary’s Response to Pot Seizures ‘Inappropriate’

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham was “offended” by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ response to her…

22 hours ago

DMT Lab Discovered in Brentwood, California During Robbery Raid

Multiple suspects face numerous charges for alleged burglary, grand theft, manufacturing and possessing a controlled…

22 hours ago

DEA Moves To Reclassify Cannabis Under Schedule III in Historic Move, Report Indicates

The DEA under the Biden administration finally proposed the process of moving cannabis to Schedule…

2 days ago