New Jersey's first legally grown marijuana will be harvested this fall

do NJ

If all goes according to plan, New Jersey’s first legally grown marijuana plants will be harvested this fall from greenhouses, where they will have been growing for months under the gaze of cameras and security guards. The plants will be dried, packaged and readied for purchase at six licensed facilities by thousands of registered patients who have debilitating illnesses.

The product will not be called Garden State Red or Jersey Gold or anything like that. But when that first joint is lit, New Jersey officially will have ventured where none of the other 13 states that legalized marijuana consumption for medicinal purposes has gone before: taking the lead role in the pot manufacturing and distribution business.

Queasy over the idea of filling the Garden State with scores of backyard pot plants, lawmakers in January passed the most restrictive medical marijuana statute in the nation by banning patients, their families and other caregivers from growing their own. But for state officials who must implement the law, this tough stance raises questions so complicated they wonder if they’ll be able to meet this fall’s deadline.

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