The Township Council this week introduced an ordinance that would allow for dispensaries to operate along the Route 9 corridor, one of the only towns in Ocean County to formally endorse medical marijuana.
"It's not that we have somebody who is interested in opening a dispensary. We're just allowing it to happen," Mayor Ken Baulderstone said in an interview. "We have residents whose doctors have given them prescriptions for medical marijuana, and it makes a lot more sense for them to go to a dispensary near where they live."
Over 80,000 patients are registered with the New Jersey medical marijuana program, about 7,000, or 9%, in Ocean County, the most of any county in the state.
But there aren't medical marijuana dispensaries in Ocean County or neighboring Monmouth County, home to 6,739 medical marijuana patients — the second-most among New Jersey counties.