Pubdate: Thu, 25 Oct 2012 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 2012 Hearst Communications Inc. Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1 Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388 Page: A9 MEDICAL POT TO BE EASY TO FIND IN MONTCLAIR, N.J. Suburb's pot to be easy to find Across New Jersey, most communities approached about hosting one of the state's first legal medical marijuana dispensaries in out-of-the-way industrial zones have just said no. Montclair is a different story. The cosmopolitan suburb a half-hour train ride from Manhattan has not only allowed Greenleaf Compassion Center - which last week received the state Health Department's first license to begin providing pot to patients - but also let the not-yet-opened business set up in the middle of the town's main drag, and with no fuss. The town of 38,000 is sometimes called "the Upper West Side of New Jersey." There's an art museum, an international film festival, a Whole Foods, Thai restaurants, racks for commuters' bikes, and the headquarters of Garden State Equality, New Jersey's largest gay-rights group. The population - 62 percent white, 27 percent black - is racially integrated and largely well-to-do. The median household income is $140,000. And the idea of tolerance is part of the town's identity. In a scene in "Mad Men," a TV drama set in the 1960s, characters who went to Montclair for a party were stunned to see black and white revelers together - and marijuana being passed around. In the eyes of the federal government, medical marijuana is still an illegal drug. But seventeen states and Washington, D.C., have flouted federal law and passed some sort of statute to allow patients access to the drug. Each state has its own model for how the cannabis can be distributed. New Jersey is not allowing registered patients to grow their own, and is limiting the potency, amount and variety of pot patients can buy. There's a relatively short list of conditions that qualify patients for the drug, and unlike some more lenient states, chronic pain and anxiety aren't on it. Only New Jersey residents are eligible. New York, easily reachable by rail, does not allow medical marijuana. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt