The first recreational marijuana dispensary in the Greater Boston area will begin selling to adults over 21 years of age Saturday after receiving final state approval on March 15.
New England Treatment Access, located at 160 Washington St. in Brookline Village, will open its doors at 9 a.m. The store is accessible on the MBTA Green Line, according to Boston.com, via stops on the D and E lines.
Amanda Rositano, NETA’s director of operational compliance, said in a statement in The Boston Globe that the Brookline dispensary, which used to exclusively sell marijuana for medical purposes, is excited to offer its services to both recreational users and patients holding a government-issued medical marijuana card.
“We look forward to welcoming our new customers, but we want our patients to know that they will always be our top priority,” Rositano said.
NETA has an online reserve ahead system, accessible through the company’s website, where customers can pre-order products and skip the full-service line at the store.
The shop will have initial purchase limits on some of its products, including a one-eighth ounce limit on marijuana flower, according to Boston.com. This is less than the current Massachusetts legal maximum, as state law restricts purchases to up to one ounce of marijuana or five grams of concentrate per person.
NETA’s Brookline location will be the 13th recreational marijuana dispensary to open in Massachusetts, following in the steps of the company’s Northampton store, which was one of the first two dispensaries in Massachusetts to open its business to recreational consumers.
Seth Blumenthal, an American history lecturer in Boston University’s College of Arts and Sciences, said he thinks there needs to be more equity in the recreational marijuana industry.
“There’s no way marijuana would have been legalized without people of color voting overwhelmingly for legalization in 2016 because of their concerns, their stake in the war on drugs,” Blumenthal said. “The purpose of legalizing marijuana is to create a safer and more regulated market than the illegal market, but this can’t happen when prices in dispensaries are so high because there are so few of them.”
Peter Bernard, president of the Massachusetts Grower Advocacy Council, wrote in an email he is in favor of the approval of the first Greater-Boston-area recreational marijuana dispensary.
“It is good to see the first greater Boston retail establishment finally open,” Bernard wrote. “We hope to see more open over the course of the coming year.”
David Campbell, 62, of the South End, said he approves of having more recreational marijuana dispensaries near Boston.
“It’s a fight against crime,” Campbell said. “Why give the money to the underground economy when you could tax it and use it for the benefit of society?”
David Alpert, 51, of South Boston, said he is concerned that enabling recreational marijuana use would compromise his community’s safety.
“There are already too many knuckleheads around,” he said. “If you already have people driving around that are impaired with alcohol, I don’t think pot does much better.”
Justin Howard, 26, of South Boston, said he agrees with the policy changes that have allowed NETA to open its doors to recreational users Saturday but thinks there is still a long way to go before achieving true marijuana legalization.
“How can it be legalized if you can’t get a good job if you smoke it?” he said. “So how legalized is it really?”
