The Medicine Woman weed dispensary, co-owned by Ice-T, opens in NJ

• The Medicine Woman Jersey City is a cannabis dispensary on Tonnelle Avenue, which is also Route 1/9 North.
• The dispensary celebrated its grand opening on April 19 with celebrity guests and other supporters.

Ice-T is known for his longtime role as New York cop Fin Tutuola on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and as a rapper who helped pioneer the gangsta rap genre. Now, he can include on his resume the title of cannabis dispensary owner.

The Medicine Woman Jersey City dispensary had its grand opening on Saturday, where the Edgewater resident, whose real name is Tracy Lauren Marrow, joined the celebration along with the dispensary’s main owner and founder, Charis Burrett, and other investors in the business. Celebrity guests included model and TV personality Nicole “Coco” Austin (Mrs. Ice-T) and actor Taylor Kinney of “Chicago Fire” fame also attended.

The dispensary, which is on Tonnelle Avenue, only a few miles from Ice T’s native Newark, had a soft opening on March 25. It sells cannabis for recreational use at affordable prices, as well as cannabis-related items like pipes and bongs. The opening comes four years after the state legalized the use of cannabis for adults 21 and older on February 22, 2021, and nearly three years after the Jersey City Cannabis Control Board approved the application for the dispensary.

The location is the second one bearing the Medicine Woman name that was opened by Burrett and her husband, Luke, with the flagship store in Bellflower, California, opening in 2019. Their Medicine Woman enterprise started in 2015 as a nonprofit delivery service.

It is also the third dispensary to open in North Jersey in the past year with a celebrity connection, the others being Hashstoria in Newark, co-owned by rapper Raekwon the Chef from the supergroup Wu-Tang Clan, and Village Hoboken in Hoboken, co-owned by former NBA player Al Harrington.

Burrett said in an interview with NorthJersey.com that she and her husband established themselves in New Jersey due to a longtime friendship with Ice-T and his wife, and his curiosity about the cannabis dispensary business.

“He had been asking us a lot of different questions, very interested in just where cannabis was going and its legalities,” Burrett said. “He said that if you ever had an opportunity to do something in his home state of New Jersey, would we help him out, give him the 411 on how it all kind of works, and give him some notes? We said, of course.”

Ice-T was unavailable for an interview and did not respond to questions submitted for comment.

The following interview with Burrett was edited for space and clarity.

Can you talk more about what led to opening the Medicine Woman dispensary?

We said [to Ice-T] … Why don’t we partner together? Why don’t we do it together? We have a brand name that is doing quite well. We have a great reputation in the industry. With our knowledge and know-how and our brand name, I think we could do a lot together. That’s where the relationship really started.

What is his role as co-owner?

He is 100% co-owner, and that is very unique. A lot of businesses that involve a celebrity face, a celebrity name, a lot of times, they have some sort of small piece to show their face and name to endorse something. But Ice is pound-for-pound a true partner in this venture. That being said, we have a team there in New Jersey from California that is managing and running the day-to-day, 365-days-a-year shop.

I think what he does is he likes to come by, check things out. We had such a good time at our opening. The event was just super-organic, with a lot of his old friends and people in the music industry. He had said that he wanted to do a monthly barbecue at the shop. I loved that idea. I thought that was exciting because it gives us the opportunity to educate the community about cannabis.

How will this dispensary benefit the community?

We also work with the Last Prisoner Project, which are people who have been incarcerated for cannabis and marijuana crimes, as well as Hudson County Community College. We are always interviewing and looking for people to come in and work for us. Obviously, anyone from those organizations would be our top priority. Also, being able to go to the community college — I know they have a cannabis program — and being able to come in as a representative of a dispensary and discuss and educate about different arenas of the cannabis world.

Can you talk more about the dispensary?

Our building footprint is just over 9,000 square feet. The dispensary itself is just a little bit under 5,000. We have three rooms. We have a reception area where you come and check in, and you sit down. As you walk into the dispensary, as you have already given your ID and all of your information, the first room you walk into is what we call our glass shop.

As you continue back into the next room, that’s our cannabis room. That’s what we have open as of now, but we are in the process for two other licenses. One being manufacturing and distribution, and the other is consumption. That would allow people to purchase the product and to partake in the cannabis on site.

Do you plan to open other dispensaries in New Jersey?

We have two locations right now that we’re looking at that are in New Jersey. I don’t want to say. I don’t want to jinx it.

Ricardo Kaulessar covers race, immigration, and culture for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com

Twitter/X: @ricardokaul