Equally frustrating for NJ MMP patients and potential business owners is the stay on the 2019 request for medical cannabis applications by the Appellate Division – The intermediary court in New Jersey that has jurisdiction over administrative agency decisions.
To review the timeline:

• In August 2019, Valley Wellness applied for a medical dispensary permit in central New Jersey
• In November 2019, The Department of Health disqualified a handful of applicants for technical reasons. Those disqualified have 30 days under law to appeal. Some did appeal.
• In December 2019 the appellate division entered a temporary injunction, which then turned into a complete stay of the 2019 “RFA” process.
• In June 2020, the department of health sought permission from the court to re-start scoring of the remaining (non-disqualified) applications. The court denied this request.
  There is no court date set.
• On October 20, 2020, the appellate division heard oral arguments on the 2018 RFA appeals. This might give some idea of the time frame that we could be looking at with a decision from the court on the 2019 RFA.

The only way that the 2019 RFA process gets kick-started again is:

1. The court sets a date for argument, renders a decision, or remands the case for an administrative hearing at The Department of Health.
2. The Department of Health agrees to score the disqualified applicants that appealed.
3. The disqualified applicants withdraw their request for relief.

 

All of the above options have been on the table for a while now. The case is briefed and there have been settlement conferences, where neither party was willing to settle. So we are still at a standstill. . . Going on 15 months since applicants, like myself, applied to open up shop.