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Tee Franklin drove two hours earlier this week from Lumberton to Secaucus to pick up her prescription of medical marijuana from Harmony Dispensary.

But when she got there, she said, a long line of cars, each with a patient waiting their turn in line, greeted her. As an immunocompromised person battling chronic pain, the crowds worried her.

She’s not alone.

Many patients in the medical marijuana program have immune issues or other comorbid conditions that could make them more susceptible to contracting a serious case of coronavirus. Others are battling chronic pain, anxiety or seizures, and have flooded dispensaries around New Jersey to stock up in case of a possible quarantine.

“Just one person and the whole line can be wiped out,” Franklin told NJ Advance Media. “My anxiety has been through the roof. This could be the end of me.”

As the state first began to brace for COVID-19 last week, several alternative treatment centers and patients wondered how the outbreak would impact them, and if the dispensaries would stay stocked and safe.

While a few patients have anecdotally reported shortages at their dispensaries, Jeff Brown, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Health who is in charge of the medical marijuana program, said Friday there are no overall supply shortages. There are currently nine dispensaries open in the state.

But patients have began rushing the dispensaries, creating long lines as employees try to balance increased demand with social distancing.

Some dispensaries have been hit hard. According to its website, Breakwater Alternative Treatment Center in Cranbury closed early due to high demand Thursday and was still closed by 11 a.m. Friday. Garden State Dispensary had placed a half-ounce limit on each strain of flower at its Union and Woodbridge dispensaries, and Harmony Dispensary in Secaucus had a 1-ounce limit.

Brown said Breakwater had closed due to staffing issues, as more people take time off to care for kids out of school. He also said some strains had run out or low, but overall, product remained available.

Officials have recommend patients buy a two-week supply, the same recommendation for other medications. But that’s not so easy for medical marijuana patients.

On a fixed budget with kids, Franklin said it’s not a reality for her to “stock up" on medicine that costs as much as $500 an ounce.

With increased financial strains brought on by COVID-19′s all-encompassing impact, that price tag could become increasingly prohibitive.

“It’s always been hard for me to afford. If you’re allowed 3 ounces, it’s $1500,” said Franklin, who said she has begun rationing her marijuana. “That’s my mortgage. It does make people want to turn to the black market.”

Insurance does not cover medical marijuana because it remains federally illegal. And New Jersey does not permit patients to grow their own marijuana at home, a move many have called for to soften shortages and high costs.

So far, no dispensaries have reported any cases of COVID-19. If a staff member is diagnosed, the facilities must report the case to their local health department and to the Division of Medical Marijuana, Brown said.

If someone falls ill, the health department recommends they go home and others disinfect the areas where the person was working.

“The department has recommended [alternative treatment centers] practice common-sense social distancing within the dispensaries to ensure they do not get too crowded,” Brown said earlier this week. On Friday, he said the department planned to announce a set of emergency adjustments to the program that would be possible under the current regulations.

Ray Gee, of Hillsborough, said he waited nearly four hours at Breakwater Thursday, his car one of dozens in line. He said he was able to purchase what he needed.

“I think everybody probably has in the back of their head, God forbid, we end up like Italy, we are all locked in place,” he said. “If you don’t get it now, you’re not going to have it.”

A long line of cars snakes past Breakwater Alternative Treatment Center in Cranbury. Medical marijuana patients have been stocking up on pot amid the coronavirus outbreak. Thursday, March 19, 2020. (Photo courtesy Ray Gee)

Dispensaries have already made safety changes.

David Knowlton, chairman of the Compassionate Care Foundation, said the Egg Harbor Township dispensary, which has a small waiting room, is having patients check in outside and wait in the car until their number is called. That’s a common method, and Brown said the health department is in the process of setting up a virtual waiting room to assist the centers with social distancing.

“It’s one person per staff member,” Knowlton said. “The interaction is very brief.”

He said they have moved patient counseling to the phone. At the company’s new Atlantic City dispensary, where there’s more space, Knowlton said it’s largely business as usual, with some added social distancing.

Knowlton said he has been pleased with health department’s response, as it sought early this week to hear the struggles each dispensary has faced, and learn from their solutions so far, in a group call Monday.

“I think the call [Monday] was, ‘how can we help? Can we loosen any standards?’” he said. “They’re kind of relying on us to say, ‘this is where we need the help.’"

Brown said Friday the health department has begun accepting third-party background checks for new employees to help get more workers into the dispensaries, should staff continue to fall off.

A spokesman for Harmony Dispensary said they planned to shift the schedule to close at 6 p.m. to comply with the state curfew regulations. The spokesman last week said they had increased sanitizer around the dispensary.

Bridgette Fonseca, the director of operations for Curaleaf NJ in Bellmawr, said they had also taken precautions to limit the number of people in the dispensary, provided proper masks and gloves to workers, upped cleaning procedures and had security monitoring patients as they stand in line and enter the dispensary.

“We are doing everything possible to keep everyone safe,” Fonseca said. “We are just like a pharmacy and practice the same protocols that a pharmacy would in this type of situation.”

Devra Karlebach, the chief executive of GTI New Jersey, which operates Rise Paterson, said they’ve added deep cleaning, and do lighter cleaning every two hours, or every few patients. They’re also asking people to wait in their cars until called into the dispensary, and have grouped appointments for more vulnerable patients together to limit their exposure to those with the virus.

Rise opened in December, but has bought marijuana from Curaleaf as it waits for its first harvest. Should their cultivation be interrupted, the operator could be set back months.

“It’s really about keeping our cultivation team safe, clean and secure,” Karlebach said. “We are limiting growers to specific rooms. If, God forbid, one cultivator gets sick, another grower can take over their room.”

Karlebach said she had heard of shortages at other dispensaries and expected an uptick in patients at Rise, but did not expect a shortage at her own storefront.

“We have plenty of medicine on hand,” she said.

The other operating dispensaries, including Breakwater Treatment Center in Cranbury, Garden State Dispensary in Union and Woodbridge and Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair did not return requests for comment.

Cindy Ortiz, who is in remission for breast cancer, said long lines at Curaleaf early in the week have blocked her from picking up marijuana. She had surgery last Thursday, and said she has not had the energy to wait in line for two hours, even though she would prefer using medical marijuana to taking her prescribed pain killers.

As an applicant for to operate a medical marijuana dispensary in South Jersey, Ortiz said she feels the coronavirus has shown the issues having only a few dispensaries in the state causes. New dispensaries licensed in late 2018 have yet to open, and the two lawsuits against the health department put the most recent round of licensing on hold late last year.

“When I go to there, that’s my biggest frustration,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

A version of this story first appeared in NJ Cannabis Insider.

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Amanda Hoover can be reached at ahoover@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandahoovernj. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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