legalizing cannabis was supposed to boost state revenue while also rating the wrongs of the War on Drugs but more than a year into its launch Advocates call the rollout a doom Loop blaming licensing delays and mismanagement by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission Ted Goldberg spoke to the group behind the new report about why they're worried for New Jersey's marijuana industry this is actually a medication that can be given and no harm no overdosing no death from marijuana so I think it was a natural fit to go to a better medication better medication persuaded rames Maximus to stop working in pharmacies and open up Urban newark's first dispensary selling recreational Cannabis it took about three and a half years to go from submitting an application to getting a license to sell medical and then another four months until he could sell recreational we could open a pharmacy in three to six months but Academy's business takes three to four years to get open it's the hurdles are there the obstacles are definitely there I think it's overly regulated but you know I understand that this is a brand new market and you know everybody wants to make sure that we do it the right way and I support that but I think it's definitely too hard Urban has been selling recreational cannabis for a week now and while Maximus says business has been solid it cost a hundred thousand dollars to add on recreational it's all of our life savings it's loans lines of credits on our properties it was a lot of a lot of money but we try to stay self-funded so we can keep the decision-making in-house those entrepreneurs have spent anywhere between a million for a million to three million for dispensaries and anywhere from three to 40 million for cultivations and and many times by the time those facilities are finished these entrepreneurs are at the end of their financial rope Todd Johnson leads the New Jersey cannabis trade Association or the CTA and he says it's too difficult for New Jersey's dispensary owners to get in the game especially compared to other states who are also legalizing cannabis Sales New Jersey was expected to be stronger than Missouri and Maryland we were expected to have a billion dollar Plus Market right out of the gate whereas in our first full year of of um of cannabis of legal adult use cannabis sales I don't even think we topped 800 million the CTA released a report this week chastising New Jersey for creating wood it calls a doom Loop blaming the bureaucracy at the Cannabis Regulatory Commission or the CRC for disappointing cannabis sales this year New Jersey is projected to earn 38 million dollars in cannabis taxes slightly less than Montana with a population of around a million people and much less than Oregon which has less than half of New Jersey's population according to the CTA report New Jersey earned 20 million dollars in tax revenue in the first nine months of recreational sales we need to remove the obstacles in the beginning so you can get to the real ones like municipality support and raising Capital part of the equation is also New Jersey's tax rate on cannabis surprisingly it's much lower than what Montana and Oregon are charging others in the Cannabis industry agree that it's a process to open a dispensary in the Garden State but they don't put all the blame on the CRC I can't access traditional banking per se how do I raise money for my cultivation facility or my retail operation how do I do that shirali Patel is the founder of the law firm Blaze responsibly she strongly disagrees with the cta's report and says the larger issue is municipalities making approvals overly complicated investors are following the news they follow the trends and they see the headlines and when the headline says hey this is a doom Loop where money isn't going to come into our state they issued a bunch of approvals for applicants in Red Bank last year then a few months ago they decided to change their rules change their process as of today New Jersey has 39 Recreational dispensaries the CRC has its next meeting two weeks from today so we could see more dispensaries across the state soon in Newark I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music]