Yes, there is a New Jersey legal weed dispensary near you. It may not be in your town, but it’s probably in your county. In most parts of the state, you should have one within a half-hour drive at the most.
And in some places — like Somerset, Mount Holly and West Milford — you might have more cannabis dispensaries than McDonald’s fast food restaurants.
The Asbury Park Press has spent two years updating its in-house list of every single licensed dispensary that’s open for business in the Garden State. As of April 19, recreational marijuana customers can purchase cannabis at 120 different New Jersey dispensaries, compared to 25 just one year ago.
Of those stores, 45 dispensaries are open to both medical marijuana patients and recreational customers. Another seven New Jersey dispensaries are open exclusively to patients.
The last year saw the birth and eventual dominance of adult use dispensaries in the marketplace. There are now 75 adult use dispensaries in 20 of 21 counties, as far north as Sussex and as south as West Cape May, from the banks of the Delaware River to the Atlantic Ocean.
The number of dispensaries in New Jersey have boomed, even as the number of towns that actually welcome them has slowly crawled along. Only 29% of municipalities have passed ordinances expressly allowing dispensaries, as of this month.
That hasn’t stopped the New Jersey Cannabis Regulation from issuing new dispensary licenses. On April 11, the commission issued seven conditional licenses to…