Recreational-weed sales are finally here! (By “here,” I mean New Jersey.) On Thursday, 12 dispensaries in the Garden State started selling recreational cannabis, with more to follow in the coming months. New York’s statewide retail market is still a long way off, so many of these dispensaries are now the closest thing to legal local access a New Yorker can get. “Arguably, it’s a violation of federal law,” one cannabis-law attorney told Patch when asked about bringing legal purchases back to the city, “but we all know there’s not going to be DEA and federal agents manning every bridge and tunnel.”
Either way, New Yorkers with a government ID showing they’re 21 or older can certainly purchase weed in New Jersey. So with that note, here are some of the recreational-cannabis dispensaries that are (hypothetically) easiest to get to from New York City on public transit according to Google Maps:
RISE Bloomfield
45 minutes
From Penn Station, you can take a New Jersey Transit (or Amtrak) train to Newark and, depending on the time of day, transfer to a number of different New Jersey Transit bus lines — 72, 11, 29, GO28 — or light rail that will take you just a few minutes’ walk away. (There’s another RISE shop also on the list of approved dispensaries in Paterson.)
Zen Leaf Elizabeth
45 minutes
This is where New Jersey governor Phil Murphy held his triumphant press conference launching the first day of sales. (Murphy, who has said that weed isn’t “my thing,” told reporters he wasn’t planning on buying anything.) From Penn Station, you can take a New Jersey Transit train to Elizabeth, then walk 15 minutes.
Apothecarium Maplewood
1 hour
From Penn Station, you can take a New Jersey Transit train to Maplewood, then walk 20 minutes.
All things considered, it’s quite a commute when the underground market in New York is plentiful. But now you have options (hypothetically).
