N.J. medical cannabis patients feel betrayed as legal weed business booms

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Edward “Lefty” Grimes uses cannabis to manage his pain.

Grimes has neuropathy, a form of nerve damage, from a back injury he sustained decades ago. After multiple spine and disc fusions he said he was constant pain.

“Sometimes it’s burning, sometimes it’s stabbing — sometimes it’s electrical, sometimes it’s dull, but it never gets better,” said Grimes, 57, who lives in Bayonne. “It just gets different or worse.”

Without cannabis, Grimes needs a wheelchair to get around for more than a couple of steps. He signed up for New Jersey’s medical marijuana program shortly after it launched more than a decade ago. With cannabis he can stand and walk for short distances.

“Cannabis got me off all those drugs,” he said. “It got me off OxyContin. It got me off Lyrica. It got me off Valium.”

Grimes and other medical cannabis patients in New Jersey were promised they would be top priority when the state opened the door for recreational sales in 2022. But as a billion-dollar weed business blossomed across the Garden State, these patients say they’ve been left behind.

The price of cannabis in New Jersey is among the highest in the nation. Consistent discounts offered to medical cannabis patients before the adult-use market opened are scarce now, patients say. While it was never easy to get specific strains that could ease pain, patients say it’s even tougher now as cannabis companies chase what’s most profitable to sell.

Many patients say in the face of this, they should be allowed to grow their own weed. But New Jersey continues to ban the policy also known as “home grow” — even though most states that have legalized cannabis allow it. Those caught growing their own risk arrest and possible fines and prison under New Jersey law. Patients say they feel betrayed.

“An important goal of legalization is to end the racial and income disparities in the way marijuana laws were enforced and prosecuted,” said Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, who co-sponsored home grow legislation, S-1393, for medical patients. “Leaving residents to face a possible prison sentence for growing a limited quantity at their homes, while it’s legal to buy, sell, possess, smoke and to grow marijuana commercially, creates a new disparity.”

The object of medical patients’ ire is Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, a primary architect of the cannabis legislation who for several years has refused to put home grow legislation up for a vote in the upper house. But he’s not alone: Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, who controls what bills are considered in the lower house, says he does not support home grow.

Activists have tried. They have lobbied lawmakers and waged protests, and as frustration built, they moved to using a giant inflatable rat outside the Statehouse aimed at the Senate President, dubbed “Sen. Ratari.”

“We’ve been calling their office for months,” Andrea Raible, a medical patient advocate who uses cannabis to treat her epilepsy, said at a Statehouse protest. “Any time it was put on the agenda it was removed.”

Well-connected lobbyists and some fellow Democratic lawmakers say they don’t know what’s driving Scutari’s opposition.

“It’s no secret the Senate President and I disagree on that concept of public policy,” Sen. Troy Singleton, D-Burlington, said in a wide-ranging interview with NJ Advance Media in June. Singleton and Gopal also sponsored legislation, S-1985, that would allow patients and recreational consumers alike to grow their own limited number of plants.

In December, Scutari said “we’re not there yet,” but offered no details on what his reasons were.

“It’s definitely on my radar because every time we talk about marijuana, one of you guys asks about it,” he told a gaggle of reporters at the Statehouse.

Gov. Phil Murphy in 2023 said he was “open minded” to it but wanted to see the industry make money. The governor’s office has declined further comment.

Coughlin, meanwhile, opposes home grow, his office said in a statement to NJ Advance Media.

“The Speaker remains supportive of legal cannabis cultivation and sales remaining exclusively with the regulated market where the state has established strict testing and packaging requirements that ensure consumers’ health is protected,” the statement said. “Despite a slow start, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission has successfully launched a regulated marketplace that has given businesses and entrepreneurs an opportunity to succeed throughout the Garden State.”

Spokespeople for Republican legislative leaders did not return requests for comment.

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, who as an Assemblyman was involved in the negotiations to get the legal weed law passed in 2021, said home grow lost out when the bill was hashed out because law enforcement opposed it.

Police weren’t happy because the proposed law no longer allowed them to use the smell of cannabis as a reason to conduct or continue a traffic stop and cut down on penalties for minors caught with it — a win for social justice advocates.

As a part of the horse-trading, police got additional money to train officers known as Drug Recognition Experts under a controversial method to determine if drivers are impaired. When home cultivation encountered resistance, it was cut to bring legalization to the finish line, Gusciora said.

“It became too controversial. Law enforcement was concerned you would have runaway farms in people’s homes,” he said. “I’m still in favor of home grow usage.”

Today, the State Police Benevolent Association, which represents an estimated 31,000 cops across the state, said in a statement that home grow is not at the top of its concerns about the cannabis law.

“The State PBA is not expected to engage on this issue at this time,” said spokesperson Alicia Carrero. “Issues relating to cannabis legalization for us have less to do with lawful use as it does with the restrictions on officers who try to do their jobs but whose hands are tied by the current law in doing so.”

When the adult-use market debuted in 2022, Scutari and Murphy said home grow would have to wait until the industry got off its feet and began turning a profit. The first companies allowed to sell recreational weed were the larger ones that operated medical cannabis dispensaries in New Jersey.

Last year, the state’s cannabis industry topped the billion-dollar mark for the first time, raking in 25% more than in 2023, according to the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission.

Advocates for home grow say having it continue to stall now adds to their frustration, noting that the initial reason for not including it in the law was concern from law enforcement, then the goal was having the industry make money.

“They’re moving the goalposts again,” Grimes said. “They made their billion dollars, which was the milestone — we were all waiting for the milestone — now they’ll have another milestone.”

New York, which opened its first legal weed dispensary about eight months after New Jersey, began allowing home grow last year. It hasn’t hurt the cannabis industry’s bottom line or spurred activity in the underground market in other weed-legal states, according to Stockton University cannabis studies professor Rob Mejia.

“While it’s valid to wonder about the potential for homegrown cannabis to enter the illicit market, data from states like Colorado and Oregon show that well-regulated home grow programs can operate without significantly increasing illegal sales,” said Mejia.

Home grow is more of a niche activity for hobbyists and personal use rather than a real threat to dispensary sales, Mejia said. “Most consumers still prefer the convenience, variety, and tested products available at licensed dispensaries.”

The state’s largest cannabis company, Curaleaf, said it would support allowing home grow if it was made legal in New Jersey.

“We believe in the power of the plant, and recommend that cannabis should be regulated, tested and responsibly age-gated,” the company said in a statement to NJ Advance Media.

“We believe that as unregulated and untested products, home grown products should be enjoyed by the individuals growing in states where this is legal, but these products should not be allowed to be distributed more widely beyond adult-use consumers, or patient/caregiver relationships in the regulated market.”

Before cannabis was legalized for recreational use, it was medical only. New Jersey’s medical cannabis market was fraught with problems under the administration of Gov. Chris Christie, who was never a fan of legalizing any form of weed. When Murphy opened it up to a wider public, he and lawmakers vowed medical patients would be prioritized.

But now many of those patients say the weed they once used for their condition is no longer available. They are frustrated because a strain that can help them may be available one day, then gone another. And they say discounts are far less than in the past, prompting some to go back to the underground market or risk arrest for growing their own.

Grimes didn’t always get what he needed in the past, but says it’s gotten worse after the legal weed market opened.

“I’m trying to find strains that I like, strains that don’t help me. It’s tough. Strain specific stuff is harder for a patient,” said Grimes, who now must conduct painstaking research about the type of plant that may be best for him.

Ken Wolski, executive director at Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey, said patients can pay lots of money at dispensaries to find the right strains only to be told they’re no longer available.

“You try a whole bunch and finally determine which one it is — then maybe you find one and the [store] says ‘no we’re going to discontinue that in the spring … Home cultivation would be a good alternative.”

The more the industry grew, the less medical weed there was that worked for patients like Grimes, advocates say. They suspect it’s about money and political influence: there is less profit in selling strains that comparatively fewer customers may buy and there is money to be made when patients only have one place to go.

In the face of complaints from patients, state cannabis regulators say they will hold town halls next month to listen to their concerns.

“We are in the exploratory phase of developing updates to our medicinal cannabis rules to improve the program and serve patients better,” said acting Cannabis Regulatory Commission Director Chris Riggs. “We will be holding three virtual town hall meetings on March 19, 25, and 26 to hear about the challenges participants — both patients and healthcare providers — face in the Medicinal Cannabis Program.”

In 2023, the commission attempted to partially revoke Curaleaf’s license, citing alleged violations of the law that required the company to play nice with unions. But complaints from medical cannabis patients that had inundated the commission also contributed to its decision. Curaleaf is the largest cannabis company operating in New Jersey and therefore generates the biggest share of tax dollars.

The regulators’ decision was quickly reversed after the cannabis company retained a law firm with political ties to New Jersey Democrats. Many cannabis advocates claimed this was a case of undue political influence. The state attorney general’s office, which advises the commission on legal matters, disputed the charges.

“When the intervention happened — when the CRC was not allowed (to enforce). The CRC was essentially nullified right then,” said Chris Goldstein, who’s been putting together a database for cannabis patients.

In the years leading up to legalization, medical patients came to the Statehouse and told stories of suffering to lawmakers that were used to push the legal weed legislation forward. Now they find themselves fighting with some of the same lawmakers.

When lobbying inside the Statehouse didn’t work, they turned to protests.

Last summer, they brought a giant inflatable rat to Trenton on the day Scutari spent as acting governor (Murphy and and Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way were out of state at the Democratic Convention in Chicago). The big rats are part of a Jersey tradition usually used in protests by unions. The patients’ target was clear. They were calling out the Senate President.

Horns blared on State Street in response to their “honk for home grow” signs.

On Earth Day, patients planted weed on a lawn outside the Statehouse.

Stuck with no alternatives, some patients are growing weed in secret and establishing collectives. They view themselves as moral outlaws. In the eyes of the law, the collectives are considered traffickers.

Lobbyist Bill Caruso, who played a pivotal role in the legalization effort, said giving patients a medical card to grow weed at home would be a pragmatic way to address concerns.

“That’s it, keep it easy,” he said.

He said medical cannabis patients have not been given a fair shake dating back to Christie’s administration.

“This is a missed opportunity not from 2020 — but from 2009 where we made promises to medical patients that we still have not delivered on,” said Caruso.

“Fifteen years later they still aren’t getting the medicine they need. This is a failure,” he said. “I don’t know if home grow solves all of that, but if it solves it for a couple of people, let it happen.”

Jelani Gibson may be reached at jgibson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X at @jelanigibson1 and on LinkedIn.