The Maple Shade Township New Jersey Zoning Board unanimously rejected a request by a nonprofit group to open a medical marijuana dispensary in the municipality.
Compassionate Sciences of Sea Cliff, N.J. had proposed distributing lozenges, creams and raw marijuana flowers to people with debilitating, chronic diseases such as glaucoma, cancer and HIV, from the front of a former furniture store in the Philadelphia suburb. The board denied the proposal after a public meeting, citing concerns about traffic and other issues.
“It does set us back, timewise, but we have other options," said Compassionate Sciences spokesman Andrei Bogolubeov told KYW Newsradio. "We’re going to look at those now, and we’ll continue to work at this." He said he was scouting another location in Burlington County, N.J. to grow and distribute the drug.
Compassionate Sciences is one of six organizations authorized by the New Jersey Department of Health and Human Services to grow and distribute medical marijuana. The state has some of strictest guideines in the nation for regulating the drug.
Medical facilities are permitted at the location, but Zoning Board Chairman John Gee told The Burlington County Times, “The state Legislature decided the who, what, why and how, but not the where. It’s not whether medical or retail is permitted, but whether medical marijuana is too intense for that zone. I struggled with this from the beginning and I believe in the use of medical marijuana, but not this site. I believe it should be attached to some hospital,” he said.
