State Suspends License For Top NJ Marijuana Doctor

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — The New Jersey Attorney General is cracking down on a doctor who once practiced in Iselin and is accused of abusing New Jersey's medical marijuana program. Authorities say Dr. Anthony Anzalone allegedly ran a multi-million dollar enterprise by indiscriminately prescribing marijuana to patients he hadn't personally treated or did not show a true need for the drug.

Anzalone, 66, agreed to have his medical license temporarily suspended Thursday, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal and the Division of Consumer Affairs announced.

Anzalone has been a registered participant in New Jersey's Medical Marijuana Program (MMP) since 2012. The doctor, educated at a medical school in Mexico, was originally trained as an obstetrician and ran his initial practice out of Rutherford. But over the years, Anzalone has become less known for delivering babies, and better known for advocating the benefits of medical marijuana.

As he explained in this 2013 profile in NJ Spotlight, Dr. Anzalone said that he frequently treated patients with chronic pain, and he grew frustrated that the only things he was able to prescribe were powerful pain relievers with potentially dangerous — and addictive — side effects.

When New Jersey passed the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, Anzalone re-named his practice "New Jersey Medical Marijuana Doctors" and launched the website drmarijuananj.com. He was also one of the first doctors to sign up to prescribe the drug under New Jersey's medical marijuana program. There are now 865 physicians participating.

He also opened new offices in Iselin, Neptune, Clifton and East Rutherford to treat patients, but was evicted from them in 2016.

In a complaint filed with the sate Board of Medical Examiners, the New Jersey Attorney General alleges that Anzalone, who advertises as “NJGreenMD,” engaged in fraud, gross negligence and professional misconduct by indiscriminately authorizing medicinal marijuana. He allegedly did so by prescribing the drug to large groups of people who attended conferences he held in hotels across New Jersey. Anzalone charged each person who attended an initial consultation fee of $350 and subsequently charged them quarterly fees of $100 for continued authorization of the drug.

The state alleges that Anzalone’s marijuana practice was inherently impersonal and detached from any effort to individualize care.

For example, at the hotel conferences he held, Anzalone typically discussed medicinal marijuana generally with the group and then relied on his staff, who were not trained in the field of medicine, to register these individuals in New Jersey's medical marijuana program. Those who paid in cash upfront were given a 90-day supply of the drug, the state alleges.

In 2016, NJ.com reported that Anzalone was evicted from the offices he leased in Iselin and Neptune, and that same year his landlord canceled the lease on his Rutherford location. After that, he started doing his business out of hotels.

In order to expand his patient base and increase his revenues, Anzalone routinely registered patients who would not even qualify for medical marijuana because they lacked a debilitating condition, or they fabricated debilitating conditions to qualify, the state alleges.

Since registering for the program, Anzalone has authorized nearly 3,250 patients for medicinal marijuana. He currently has about 2,077 active patients. Comparatively, most physicians registered with New Jersey's medical marijuana program have an average of just 45 patients, the attorney general's office said.

A lawyer representing Anzalone called him a "trailblazer" in his field, who would be vindicated.

"Dr. Anzalone is a very popular doctor that takes great care of his patients," said his attorney, Jef Henninger. "He is a trailblazer in this industry. Dr. Anzalone maintains his innocence and looks forward to having his license reinstated at the conclusion of this matter."

The Medicinal Marijuana Program was established under New Jersey’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, a law that offers legal protection to individuals who are seriously ill and require marijuana as an alternative treatment for certain, defined, qualifying conditions. However, New Jersey is fairly strict about which medical conditions qualify and which do not.

There are currently 865 participating physicians in New Jersey's Medical Marijuana Program. They are authorized to certify patients to receive marijuana at one of the six dispensaries in the state. One of the requirements to prescribe medicinal marijuana is to have a "bona fide physician-patient relationship," something the state says Anzalone lacked with the thousands of patients he OK'd for the drug.

“State legislatures may relax their laws against marijuana – and many already have – but there are limits to what state law allows,” said Attorney General Grewal. “Dr. Anzalone failed to adhere to even the most fundamental rules of New Jersey’s Medicinal Marijuana Program. We expect physicians to abide by the rules and regulations of their profession, no matter what kind of medicine they are practicing.”

"The public should know that we vigorously enforce those limits to protect public safety and prevent unlawful distribution," he added.

Anzalone was ordered Thursday by the State Board of Medical Examiners to wind down his medical practice within the next 30 days and cease practicing medicine altogether on February 8. These are the terms of an Interim Consent Order he entered with the Board on Wednesday.

His license will remain temporarily suspended until the allegations against him are resolved.

“We allege that Dr. Anzalone exploited his patients and the MMP for his own gain, completely disregarding the regulations meant to protect patients and promote the efficacious use of medicinal marijuana,” said Paul R. Rodríguez, Acting Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs. “By temporarily suspending Dr. Anzalone from practicing medicine, we are making it clear that we will not allow unscrupulous doctors to enrich themselves at the expense of the safety and welfare of their patients and the public.”

The Division of Consumer Affairs said they opened an investigation into Anzalone after they received numerous consumer complaints against him, including several from patients.

Undercover state investigators actually posed as patients seeking medicinal marijuana, and attended his hotel conferences, posing as patients seeking medicinal marijuana.

According to the Verified Complaint, Anzalone failed to comply with MMP regulations in his treatment of four actual patients and two undercover investigators posing as patients by, among other things:

• providing a certification and written instructions to a patient for the medical use of marijuana with whom he does not maintain a bona fide physician-patient relationship;
• failing to perform a comprehensive medical history and physical examination of the patient to determine if that patient suffers from a debilitating medical condition qualifying him or her to receive medicinal marijuana;
• failing to assess the patient’s qualifying condition at least every three months; and
• failing to keep accurate and complete records pertaining to his medical marijuana treatment.

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