Coronavirus: Medical marijuana dispensaries are called essential in Mass., but recreational pot shops must close under governor’s order

Starting tomorrow, only licensed medical marijuana retailers are allowed to sell cannabis products in Massachusetts for the next few weeks during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Baker on Monday morning asked residents to stay at home as the respiratory illness continues to spread and ordered all non-essential businesses to close at noon on March 24 through noon on April 7.

Dispensaries that are not licensed to sell medical pot and only offer sales for adults 21 and older must close their doors Tuesday.

For Pure Oasis, which just opened earlier this month as Boston’s first recreational marijuana shop and the state’s first equity business, a few weeks of operations now must come to a sudden halt.

“The bigger picture is that there is an ongoing global epidemic and we all kind of have to do our part to stem the flow of the virus,” co-owner Kobie Evans said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “We all have our civic duty to help each other and help flatten out the curve.”

Some dispensary owners feel the governor’s order overlooks the fact that many medical patients choose to shop at recreational-only dispensaries, or that some people use cannabis as a medicine but do not have a medical card. [Read More @ MassLive]