Saturday marked another first for the New Jersey cannabis industry – the grand opening of the Garden State's first standalone retail dispensary, Earth & Ivy, in New Brunswick.
Earth & Ivy is not a medical treatment center and can’t fulfill state Medicinal Cannabis Program orders from doctors, but medical marijuana patients will receive a discount.
Not only is the dispensary, located on George Street, the first of its kind, but it is also the youngest-owned dispensary in the country, with an average ownership age of 25, according to Earth & Ivy. It is also owned by the youngest Black woman to own a cannabis dispensary in the U.S., co-founder Sasha Stephens, the owners said.
The three co-founders and co-owners, Stephens and David Ryslik, both 26, and Anthony Lotti, 24, were all friends and student-athletes at the University of Pennsylvania. They experienced first-hand various sports injuries and their treatment with harsh pharmaceuticals, noting how badly the use of cannabis as a treatment was stigmatized in sports and society, they said.