NEPTUNE - As executives, employees and township officials cut the ribbon on New Jersey's 16th medical marijuana dispensary, John Gray spokeup from behind a crowd of cameras.
"So, where's the line to get in?"
Until Friday, Gray had been driving nearly an hour to buy medical marijuana at the Breakwater dispensary in Cranbury, which helps minimize the pain of a motorcycle injury that sometimes makes it difficult to sleep and eat.
Now, he's just five minutes away from Zen Leaf Neptune, which officially opened Friday along Route 66, at the site of the former Smashburger restaurant.
“This is right up the street. It’s closer. It’s more convenient,” said Gray, a barber living and working in Neptune. “It keeps things legit. The fact that everybody can make money off of it, at the end of the day, it’s helping patients and everybody. Nobody’s doing it under the table.
“It’s actually helping to grow New Jersey.”
Zen Leaf Neptune is just the second in Monmouth County, opening after a Garden State Dispensary satellite in Eatontown. The Jersey Shore has long been a desert for medical marijuana, despite nearly 20%of the state's medical marijuana patients residing in Monmouth and Ocean counties.
NJ medical marijuana:List of dispensaries in the Garden State
The Neptune location will serve as the company's second New Jersey dispensary — a third location in Lawrence is planned to open soon — but cannabis won't be grown there. The company is planting and growing its medicinal cannabis at a facility in Readington,a company spokesperson said.
"Patients will have another convenient location to access medical cannabis, and we're also excited because New Jersey is taking steps to unlock the full range of benefits from cannabis legalization in the months and years ahead," said Darius Bobo, state director for Verano Holdings, Zen Leaf's parent company.
If someone walked into the dispensary blindfolded, they'd be hard pressed to know what is sold there. It is modern and sparsely decorated, with only a few shelves displaying empty jars of Verano products — like "Swift Lift" prerolled joints, "Kind Tree" marijuana flower and a "Roam" vaporizer.
A few photos of cannabis plants in full bloom and the unmistakable odor of marijuana, relatively muted, are the only signs that Zen Leaf Neptune is selling medical marijuana, not high-end cosmetics, for example.
Zen Leaf Neptune opens at the forefront of a new era in New Jersey, as the state prepares to usher in a new era of legalized marijuana. More than 2.7 million voters, about two-thirds, supported legal weed on a ballot question last year, which was enacted in a three-bill packaged signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in February.
Last week, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission — which will oversee both the recreational and medical marijuana industries — met for the first time.
Medical marijuana holds the key to New Jersey opening its doors for the first retail marijuana sales to recreational customers.
The CRC will only consider allowing its medical marijuana dispensaries to apply for recreational sales if the needs of the state's 106,000 medical marijuana patients are met, CRC Executive Director Jeff Brown said.
“In order to launch a legal market on the backbones of our current industry, we would really need to see action across the board,” Brown said.
NJ legal weed:Takeaways from the first Cannabis Regulatory Commission meeting
In the coming weeks, the state is expected to issue another 24 licenses to medical marijuana dispensaries, growers and vertically integrated operations that will both grow and sell medical marijuana.
It remains unknown if Verano Holdings eventually will sell recreational marijuana at its Zen Leaf Neptune dispensary. Adding those customers, which cannabis industry leaders refer to as "adult use," would require approval by both the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission and the township.
"We haven't even discussed it yet," Neptune Deputy Mayor Nick Williams said. "We've been contacted by a lot of different people, but the governing body wanted to get all of this in place. And when more information about recreational comes to us, we'll see. (The CRC) only had their first meeting last week."
In January, Neptunezoning officer George Waterman told the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey that the Zen Leaf location was within the town's "hospital support" zone, which allows usessuch as professional laboratories and pharmaceutical preparation manufacturing.
While a medical marijuana dispensary falls into that category, a recreational dispensary does not, he said.
Bobo said he didn't know if the Neptune dispensary would eventually sell marijuana to recreational customers, but said the company had followed that model in other states.
"Eventually, the state will let it be legal and that'swhat we do in every market — start out as medical and transition to whatever the market will allow you to do," he said.
Monmouth County: Medical marijuana dispensaries planned in Neptune, Asbury Park
Verano Holdings operates Zen Leaf dispensaries in eight states, including recreational dispensaries in Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and Nevada.
“Give it a chance,” Gray said, when asked about some New Jersey municipalities passing ordinances to opt out of the cannabis industry, including medical marijuana. “If you look at the other things people are trying to use, it’s proven that medical marijuana helps people out.
“People always think it’s going to be abused, but, if you do it in a constructive way, it can work out for everybody.”
Mike Davis has spent the last decade covering New Jersey local news, marijuana legalization, transportation and basically whatever else is going on at any given moment. Contact him atmdavis@gannettnj.comor@byMikeDavison Twitter.
