Business & Tech

Recreational Marijuana Shop Opening Close To NH Border

Alternative Therapies Group in Salem, Massachusetts, will start recreational marijuana sales this weekend.

SALEM, MA — Recreational marijuana will be available within an hour's drive of New Hampshire this weekend with the opening of a pot shop in Salem, Massachusetts. Alternative Therapies Group on Grove Street is set to begin recreational sales Saturday. It will be Massachusetts' third recreational marijuana shop to open.

"I think this sends a positive message that our cannabis industry is a part of the city, a part of society, and that times have changed, mostly for the better," Salem City Councilor Josh Turiel told Salem Patch.

The shop is about a 50-minute drive from Nashua, Salem and Portsmouth. People from out of state can makes purchases there if they are 21 or older. But New Hampshire residents who drive back home face $100 fines if they are caught with the drug in the Granite State. Lawmakers last year decriminalized the drug but it remains illegal to possess. That could change next year, as the Democratic-controlled legislature is expected to introduce a legalization bill. Gov. Chris Sununu opposes legalization.

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Massachusetts' first recreational marijuana shops — Cultivate in Leicester and New England Treatment Access in Northampton — opened last month. They were the first such shops to open on the East Coast. The two stores generated more than $7 million in sales during their first three weeks, according to the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission.

Alternative Therapies Group's Salem shop is the first Eastern Massachusetts pot shop.

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Voters in Massachusetts and Maine approved recreational marijuana in 2016. No shops have opened in Maine yet.

Photo credit: Shutterstock


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