April 11, 2022- 7:24 p.m.
New Jersey’s recreational cannabis market just got the green light.
The Cannabis Regulatory Commission on Monday approved seven medical marijuana dispensaries, formally known as alternative treatment centers, to begin selling adult recreational weed, perhaps as soon as this month.
The vote came less than three weeks after the commission rejected the applications of alternative treatment centers as Brown announced they were about 100,000 pounds short of meeting the demand for both the medical and recreational markets.
“Over the last year we hit many milestones and all strengthened us to getting to this point,” said Jeff Brown, executive director of the CRC.
Brown said at that meeting that making sure medical marijuana patients would not be hurt was a primary concern.
The operators given the green light by the panel to begin selling recreational use of cannabis to adults are: Acreage, Curaleaf, Columbia Care, Verano, Ascend Wellness, GTI and TerrAscend.
The approved centers and their satellite shops will be the only facilities selling cannabis initially to both the medical and recreational market in the Garden State until smaller cultivators given conditional approval by the panel can get their operations moving.
The facilities that could soon sell legal weed are in:
- Bellmawr, Bordentown, Edgewater Park (operated by Curaleaf)
- Neptune (pending final zoning approval), Elizabeth, Lawrence (operated by Verano, which uses the Zen Leaf banner)
- Bloomfield, Paterson, Paramus (operated by Green Thumb)
- Vineland, Deptford (operated by Columbia Care)
- Fort Lee, Rochelle Park, Montclair (operated by Ascend)
- Egg Harbor Township, Atlantic City (operated by Acreage)
- Phillipsburg, Maplewood, Lodi (operated by TerrAscend)
The panel on Monday also approved another 34 conditional licenses for smaller cultivators and manufacturers to grow crops and build out their facilities. That adds to the 68 approved on March 24, but it could take up to a year for these operations to begin selling weed.
