New Jersey legalizes recreational marijuana sales to legal adults

After months of deliberation on the regulatory framework, adult sales of recreational marijuana are now legal in the state of New Jersey.

Residents voted to legalize recreational marijuana in November 2020, and the New Jersey legislature finally legalized the sale of recreational marijuana to adults 21 and over on Thursday this week.

The delay was due to much controversy over the specifics of how the regulation of recreational marijuana would work, and when the move went legal on Thursday, only 13 dispensaries across the state of over 9 million residents were open for recreational sales.

Due to only seven companies being allowed to sell recreationally in the state because they already operate dispensaries in the state, they were less likely to sell out or experience logistical issues when the legal recreational sales went live. The date of April 21 was purposely set because April 20 is a popular holiday in the marijuana community and there was concern that dispensaries would be overwhelmed.

Dispensary owners say they are prepared for the onslaught of new customers, including those from surrounding states that will now travel to New Jersey to buy recreational marijuana.

Because dispensaries had originally planned for the launch of recreational sales in August 2021, they had stocked up already, and have used the extra time the legislators took to hash out the details of regulation to stock up even more.

“We’ve had long lines in some of our locations without adult-use. So I think this will just be adding to that,” Joe Bayern, CEO of cannabis company Curaleaf told CNBC. “We’ve brought on extra people, we’ve worked on traffic studies, we’ve opened up new [point-of-sale] stations at all of our dispensaries. So we’ve done everything we can, I think, to be prepared for it.”