Following order on medical marijuana program, Murphy gets up-close look of how it works

Gov. Phil Murphy visited a medical marijuana dispensary on Thursday, following up his order to study the state's program with an up-close look at it in action.

Murphy toured the Breakwater Treatment and Wellness center in Cranbury, one of the state's five medical marijuana dispensaries.

With a skunky scent in the air and a lobby full of patients waiting to enter, Murphy faced a small room of glass pipes, oils and displays of packaged marijuana strains with names like Cannatonic, AK-47 and Grape Ape and touted the benefits of medical marijuana while lamenting New Jersey's slow progress to open it to more people.

"This is a life or death reality for too many folks," Murphy told reporters, who were not allowed on the tour, in a brief news conference afterward. "There are too many people who are suffering."

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Murphy campaigned promising to legalize recreational marijuana, but the Democrat said Thursday that that is separate from his preference to see the state's eight-year-old medical marijuana program broadened. He signed an executive order Tuesday calling for a review of the program, with a focus on expansion.

"This is the more immediate priority. We will get to, in due course, I think sooner than later, the whole recreational process," Murphy said.

A sixth dispensary is expected to open soon. Still, New Jersey's medical marijuana program and its roughly 15,000 patients lags other states, according to Murphy. That's largely because his predecessor, Republican Chris Christie, viewed marijuana as a gateway drug and kept strict controls on the qualifying conditions for the drug's medical use.

The state has approved 13 conditions to be treated with medical marijuana, including cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder and glaucoma, according to its website. A medical review panel recommended last year that New Jersey approve 43 other conditions, including opioid use.

Even with those recommendations before him, Murphy said he is "not going to bigfoot the audit process" he ordered earlier in the week. But, he said, "my personal opinion is the list is far too narrow, so my going-in bias is that that needs to be expanded dramatically."

The executive order gives the Department of Health 60 days to return to Murphy with its findings and recommendations for new rules and regulations — or the elimination of existing ones.

At Breakwater, Murphy's tour guides found fault in what they consider a clunky and lengthy process between obtaining a registration card and getting a prescription filled, which they said can take up to a month. It is especially difficult for seniors and terminally ill patients, they said.

"It's really frustrating that they would not be able to get that medicine and the relief they want," said James Froehlich, Breakwater's legal counsel.

In anticipation of expansion, some towns have altered their zoning laws to prohibit dispensaries from opening.

Andrew Zaleski, general manager of Breakwater, said many people have a negative view of medical marijuana and the clientele it attracts. He said that in Cranbury, where Breakwater operates out of a small space tucked into a corporate center off Interstate 95, "there is no crime" and "when you come come in here, these are real people that need this."

Several people of varying ages waited in the dispensary's lobby as Zaleski spoke.

"If anything, it's going to be a good thing for the community," he said.