A Spatial Analysis of New Jersey's Medical Cannabis Dispensary Accessibility

Despite the state’s progress on expansion of adult recreational use and medical cannabis, one third of New Jersey counties lack access to even a single dispensary. This post presents a spatial analysis of New Jersey’s medical cannabis dispensary focusing on how far residents must travel to obtain cannabis in the state.

One Third of NJ Counties Lack Even a Single Dispensary

Between a lack of permits available from the state Department of Health (now handled by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission), a patchwork of local zoning and planning decisions that often serve as obstacles, and litigation over the previous round of dispensary permits, efforts to expand dispensaries have moved slowly.

The end result has been an unequal allocation of dispensaries across New Jersey with some counties missing out entirely. That has left residents to look to neighboring counties to obtain medical cannabis.

A third of all counties - Morris, Sussex, Somerset, Salem, Ocean, Hunterdon & Cape May - have not had a single medical cannabis dispensary commence operations since the state’s medical cannabis program began under Governor Chris Christie, according to official state records.

Mapping the Towns Left Behind

For those who reside in a county without a dispensary, travel times can be quite onerous. I’m particularly interested in looking at regions of New Jersey that are more than half an hour’s drive to the nearest dispensary to illuminate regions of the state that might be best served by new dispensaries.

Using Open Source Routing Machine (OSRM) via R, I created isochrones - polygons that show drive times to a location at various geographic distances - for all currently licensed cannabis dispensaries in New Jersey. Inner segments of each polygon have shorter drive times, while outer segments represent a max drive time of half an hour (30 minutes). Those who reside in towns outside of this polygon can face max drive times of 30 minutes to over an hour to reach the nearest dispensary.

Over 756,000 New Jerseyans Face Long Drives

110 municipalities which are home to 756,034 New Jerseyans face maximum drive times of 30 minutes or greater to the nearest dispensary, a problem that is compounded by a lack of public transit infrastructure in some regions of the state.

Key Findings

The analysis revealed several underserved regions:

• Ocean County coastal region - Much of the shore communities and inland areas lack convenient access
• Northwest New Jersey - Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon & Morris counties are located outside reasonable distance to dispensaries
• Southern New Jersey - Portions of Salem and Cape May counties would benefit from more optimally placed dispensaries

Concluding Thoughts

Many medical cannabis patients are rightfully concerned that adult-use recreational sales will place further strain on an already inadequate system, with just 23 dispensaries serving a state of over 9 million residents.

New Jersey’s cannabis regulators should adopt a data-driven planning strategy to strategically target under-served regions of the state to ensure a more equitable allocation of future dispensaries to the regions of New Jersey currently lacking them.

The Full List of Towns

All 110 municipalities identified in this analysis face maximum drive times of 30 minutes or greater to the nearest dispensary. The affected municipalities span multiple counties including Ocean, Cape May, Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset, Salem, and Burlington counties.

Notable municipalities include:

• Manchester Township (43,649 population)
• Berkeley Township (41,963 population)
• Lacey Township (29,076 population)
• Mount Olive Township (28,913 population)
• Stafford Township (27,674 population)
• Barnegat Township (23,155 population)
• Roxbury Township (22,882 population)
• Vernon Township (22,102 population)
• Raritan Township (22,252 population)
• Jefferson Township (20,912 population)