iAnthus Started its Operations at New Jersey Cultivation Campus, Marks Tenth State in Operating Footprint

iAnthus Capital Holdings, Inc. (CSE: IAN) (OTCQX: ITHUF), owns, operates, and partners with best-in-class regulated cannabis operations across the United States. The company announced it has received approval to commence operations at its Pleasantville, NJ cultivation campus.  MPX New Jersey, an affiliate of iAnthus, is the ninth Alternative Treatment Center (ATC) in the state to receive a cultivation permit. This marks the tenth state in iAnthus’ operational footprint.   

iAnthus Capital Holdings, Inc. owns and operates best-in-class licensed cannabis cultivation, processing and dispensary facilities throughout the United States, providing investors diversified exposure to the U.S. regulated cannabis industry. Founded by entrepreneurs with decades of experience in operations, investment banking, corporate finance, law and health care services, iAnthus provides a unique combination of capital and hands-on operating and management expertise. iAnthus currently has a presence in 11 states, including 30 dispensaries (FL-12, AZ-4, MA-1, MD-3, NY-2, CO-1, VT-1 and NM-6 where iAnthus has minority ownership).

On February 3, 2020, the New Jersey Department of Health issued MPX New Jersey a permit to cultivate at the Company’s Pleasantville cultivation facility. The 33,000-square-foot facility, when fully built, will include an extraction lab and kitchen as well as cultivation. The facility is expandable to 83,000 square feet and the first harvest is expected in the second quarter of 2020.

The Company’s first medical dispensary in New Jersey is expected to open in Atlantic City in the first quarter of 2020.  The 1,300-square-foot facility, located just off the boardwalk on S. New York Avenue, will open as a Be. retail store and will service Atlantic City’s estimated 24 million annual visitors. The Company is slated to open a larger Be. flagship facility in the same location pending adult use legalization. The locations of the Company’s additional future dispensary sites in New Jersey have yet to be determined.

“We are thrilled to be entering the New Jersey market, my home-state and our milestone tenth state market,” said Beth Stavola, Chief Strategy Officer of iAnthus and CEO of MPX New Jersey. “With this expansion, we will bring to New Jersey not only clean, safe, and high-quality cannabis products, but jobs and increased economic activity in the Pleasantville and Atlantic City areas.  We greatly look forward to servicing the medical marijuana community and being part of a path forward toward full adult-legalization.”

New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the U.S. with approximately nine million residents, is currently a medical-use cannabis market.  In just under two years since Governor Murphy took office, the number of recommending physicians in the New Jersey Medicinal Marijuana Program has doubled, and the number of patients has more than tripled to more than 66,000. Patients continue to enroll at a rate of approximately 500 a week.  Jake Honig’s Law, enacted in July 2019, put in place meaningful provisions to expand access for medical patients, including the removal of monthly limits for terminally ill patients. On December 16, 2019, the NJ Senate and Assembly passed a resolution to add legalization of adult use cannabis as a ballot question for the November 2020 election.