Medical cannabis dispensaries can begin delivering products to their patients at home, a long-awaited move that intends to ease patient access and allow them to stay away from dispensaries to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The state Department of Health announced Thursday it has issued a waiver that allows for home delivery.
“The Department continues to prioritize patient access during this unprecedented pandemic,” Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said in a statement. “This new waiver will allow [alternative treatment centers], once they have submitted a plan to the Department for approval, to deliver across the state.”
Jake Honig’s Law, which Gov. Phil Murphy signed last summer to expand the state’s medical marijuana program, included provisions for home delivery. But the service never launched.
But when hours-long lines backed up dispensaries in March, the program began to talk about ways it could better serve patients — many of whom have pre-existing conditions that make them vulnerable — in the midst of a public health crisis.
Since then, the dispensaries have enacted new hygiene and social distancing policies, and some even offer curbside pickup and online appointments to avoid close contact with others.
More than 78,000 patients have signed up for the medical marijuana program in New Jersey. As the program has grown, patients have complained of long lines and product shortages, and many say they must still make long drives to dispensaries.
Two more dispensaries, Zen Leaf Elizabeth in Union County and Columbia Care in Vineland, opened over the past month. Columbia Care, which offers home delivery from dispensaries in other states, has said it intended to do the same in New Jersey once permitted.
But home delivery has its complications. Marijuana is a cash-only business, and delivery can bring security risks for drivers.
Only employees approved to work at the state’s 11 operating dispensaries can make the deliveries, according to the health department’s announcement. Their vehicles must be equipped with additional security, including GPS tracking and a secure lock box.
Several states that have legalized marijuana for those over 21 also offer home delivery, like California, Nevada and Oregon. When stay-at-home orders went into effect in California, delivery orders there skyrocketed, according to Weedmaps, which tracks consumer data of orders placed through its platform.
That’s around the time industry stakeholders began seriously looking at the feasibility of delivery.
“I think that there is going to be something that happens with delivery in New Jersey in relatively short order. Regulators want it, legislators want it, patients want it, industry wants it,” Susanna Short, a consultant who has worked collaboratively with the 12 licensed medical marijuana companies, told NJ Cannabis Insider in April.
Under curbside delivery, also initiated with a health department waiver, each alternative treatment center could choose to enact the policy, and did so on their own timeline. For now, it’s not clear how soon home delivery can become a reality.