Westampton has become the latest of New Jersey's municipalities to vote down a land-use variance that would have allowed for alternative treatment centers to open in the area. Westampton joins, among others, the township of Maple Shade, which last year rejected a dispensary opening its doors at the vacant site of a former furniture store.

Another one, the Upper Freehold Township, last month passed an ordinance banning any local zoning approvals for businesses in violation of federal law.

New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services had previously approved six centers in accordance to New Jersey's medical marijuana law - which is limited compared to that of other marijuana-legal states. Fewer conditions are qualified and limits on THC punctuate one of the most restrictive medical marijuana programs of the 16 states allowing for the alternative medicine.

The goal was to provide a safe place for patients to purchase their doctor-prescribed medical marijuana. It seems that would-be tax-generating patients, in the meantime, are forced to either take a combination of ineffective and ultimately harmful legal medications, or acquire their marijuana on the street, illegally.

Read more about the New Jersey lock-out on phillyBurbs.com.