Second Medical Marijuana Dispensary Opens Today In South Jersey
By David Madden
BELLMAWR, N.J. (CBS) - South Jersey now has its second Medical Marijuana dispensary. It's opening today in Bellmawr, Camden County.
The people behind the Compassionate Sciences Alternative Treatment Center have worked for three years to find a town willing to accept the business and clear the myriad of state regulations to get to opening day.
General Manager Michael Nelson says 100 people have signed up to get their prescriptions filled, but they can handle a lot more:
"Based on the amounts that are being purchased by the patients in New Jersey over the last year, we can handle 18 hundred patients a month."
Nelson has an application pending with the state to become the first to offer marijuana in a form that is not smoked.
"We have provided the standards for manufacturing to the state, based on what they've put out as the required standards so that we can produce lozenges and topicals for the patients of New Jersey," he said.
The closest competitor is another non-profit that set up shop in Egg Harbor Township, Atlantic County about two years ago. Two others are operating in Woodbridge and Montclair.
New Jersey's Medical Marijuana law, believed to be one of the toughest in the nation, allows for a total of six dispensaries statewide. South Jersey now has the two locations permitted under the law.