Legal Marijuana Sales Expected to Start Within Weeks in New Jersey

A state commission has granted seven medical-marijuana companies permission to start selling cannabis to all adults at 13 dispensaries.

A year and a half after New Jersey residents voted to legalize cannabis, the state on Monday gave seven medical-marijuana companies approval to start selling their products to all adults, opening the door to the first legal marijuana sales in the New York City region within a month.

In a meeting held by videoconference, the five-member Cannabis Regulatory Commission ushered in a seismic cultural change, making New Jersey the second state on the East Coast to fully authorize sales of cannabis to all adults.

For years, the state’s medical-marijuana dispensaries had been permitted to sell cannabis only to buyers with permission from a doctor to use the drug as medicine.

Recreational adult-use sales are permitted to start as soon as each of the seven companies pays upward of $1 million in fees associated with the expanded licenses and satisfies other bureaucratic requirements to gain final approval.

“The path to get there does not have to be any specific length of time,” said Jeff Brown, executive director of the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission. “It doesn’t have to be 30 days. It can be less. It can be more.”

The commission authorized 13 individual dispensaries, which will be scattered throughout New Jersey, including several that are within a half-hour drive of New York City. [Read more @ The NY Times]