The scramble to open new medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivation centers across New Jersey has begun.
Gov. Murphy issued an order allowing a wide range of ailments to be treated with cannabis two months ago and the state’s five licensed dispensaries are now flooded with thousands of new patients.
Compassionate Care Foundation (CCF), a South Jersey dispensary that previously struggled to attract patients, now has ambitious plans to open two satellite dispensaries and expand cultivation by adding a 135,000-square-foot greenhouse that once nurtured a sea of orchids.
The satellite stores, which it hopes to open in Moorestown and Cherry Hill, would be the cannabis industry’s first foray into populous and affluent communities in South Jersey. The greenhouse is in more rural Gloucester County.
CCF’s application for state approval, which the Inquirer obtained through an open public records request, projects that the new stores would boost its clientele six-fold to 15,000 patients within six months of opening. “CCF’s current location in Atlantic County is too remote for our current patient base,” the application said.
CCF’s dispensary and grow site, which opened in 2013, is tucked inside a former Trump casino warehouse in an Egg Harbor Township industrial park a dozen miles outside of Atlantic City. Curaleaf, South Jersey’s only other dispensary, is in an industrial park too, in tiny Bellmawr Borough. Last month, Curaleaf relocated its dispensary to a larger building across the street to accommodate the spike in patients and to free up space to expand its cultivation center.