(21 Apr 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bloomfield, New Jersey - 21 April 2022
1, Various, Rise marijuana dispensary exteriors
2. Various, Customers in line
3. Various, Packaged marijuana products
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Hagan Seeley, customer:
"Yeah, I was in line pretty early, I got here around 5:30, they opened at 6:00. But yeah, I literally saw yesterday that today is the first day Jersey was becoming recreationally legal, so I decided to make the venture out early in the morning and see what it was all about."
++BLACK FRAMES ++
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Hagan Seeley, customer:
"Feels feels right, feels safe. Feels like everything you'd want it to be rather than anything that you could get anywhere else."
++BLACK FRAMES ++
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Barrows, customer:
"A quarter of one I didn't even get crazy. Nice indica dominance and a smaller one, and it'll be a nice, relaxing afternoon."
++BLACK FRAMES ++
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Barrows, customer:
"I'm 60 years old as of last week. It's pretty much an eighth a week guy. Always have been never more, never less. You know, maybe less. And I'm just going to relax. Stay chill."
++BLACK FRAMES ++
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Barrows, customer:
"If I get pulled over on the way home if I'm ever asked, 'Do you have any drugs in the car?' Now I'm allowed to say, well, only these."
9. Various, message board
STORYLINE:
Recreational marijuana sales began in New Jersey on Thursday with dozens of people lining up before dawn to join the celebratory scene.
"It's pretty amazing, exciting and if I get pulled over on the way home and I'm ever asked if I have any drugs in the car now I'm allowed to say only this," Michael Barrows said, holding up the canister of marijuana flower he had just purchased. Possession of cannabis is legal now in New Jersey, though driving under the influence is still prohibited.
Barrows, 60, joined a steady stream of other novelty seekers, longtime marijuana users and medical patients at RISE in Bloomfield, near the state's biggest city, Newark, and not far from New York City.
With soul music blaring, free doughnuts in the parking lot and a balloon arch at the entrance, New Jersey's cannabis kickoff for people 21 and older had the feel of a fair more than a store opening.
Hagan Seeley, 23, said he had just found out a day earlier that recreational sales were starting and decided to see what the scene looked like. He was impressed with the venue, decorated with an old train station-style tote board and long wooden tables featuring products under glass globes.
"It feels right. It feels safe. It feels like everything you'd want it to be rather than anything you could get anywhere else," Seeley said.
The start of the recreational market comes a week after Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy announced that state regulators had cleared the way for recreational sales at seven "alternative treatment centers" that had already offered medical cannabis. The seven centers operate 13 facilities across the state.
New Jersey is among 18 states, plus the District of Columbia, with legalized recreational marijuana markets. Thirty-seven states, including New Jersey, have legalized medical marijuana.
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