New Jersey residents will be able to blaze up with recreational weed from the state’s dispensaries Thursday in a rollout that misses 4/20 by one day.
State residents over the age of 21 will have to wait until after the cannabis holiday to legally purchase marijuana without a medical card for the first time.
“Selecting 4/20 for opening day would have presented unmanageable logistical challenges for patients and other buyers, surrounding communities, and for municipalities,” said Toni-Anne Blake, spokeswoman for the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, per NJ.com.
“Regulators and industry representatives agreed that it was not feasible.”
State regulators earlier this month gave the green go-ahead to seven facilities that already sell medical marijuana. These facilities will now begin to sell recreational weed, too.
Three of the seven facilities are in the northern part of the state, three are in the south, and one is in central New Jersey.
“This is a historic step in our work to create a new cannabis industry,” Gov. Phil Murphy wrote in a tweet last week.
Following three years of failed legislative attempts and tax negotiations, Murphy last year signed three bills that legalize up to 6 ounces of recreational pot in the Garden State.
Murphy, who promised to legalize weed in his first 100 days as governor four years ago, finally saw his campaign promises realized when residents voted to amend the state constitution and legalize recreational grass back in November 2020.
“As of this moment, New Jersey’s broken and indefensible marijuana laws which permanently stained the records of many residents and short-circuited their futures, and which disproportionately hurt communities of color and failed the meaning of justice at every level, social or otherwise — are no more,” Murphy said during a briefing at the time.
New Jersey is now one of 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, that have legalized recreational cannabis.
