MAPS has spent four decades running clinical trials, lobbying regulators and building the case for psychedelic medicine. It had never partnered with a cannabis company until now.
Cannabis and psychedelics have spent most of the last two decades in adjacent rooms with the door closed. Same prohibition, same schedule, largely the same argument, and almost no overlap in the people making it. Psychedelics went to the clinic. Cannabis went to retail. The two movements rarely showed up in the same building.
Which is what makes a small announcement out of Bergen County, New Jersey, worth a minute of attention.
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, the nonprofit Rick Doblin founded in 1986 and the organization that carried MDMA-assisted therapy through decades of clinical trials, has entered into a collaboration with HoneyProjects, a New Jersey cannabis operator. According to the announcement, it is the first time in MAPS’ forty-year history that the organization has partnered with a cannabis company.
The partnership launched alongside the opening of HoneyGrove Elmwood Park on August 29, at 294 Route 46 East, the company’s third dispensary in New Jersey and its first in Bergen County. It joins HoneyGrove Gloucester Township and HoneyStash, the first licensed dispensary in Metuchen. The collaboration, as described by the companies, involves ongoing resources and activations at the stores rather than research or clinical work.
That distinction matters, and it is worth stating plainly: this is education and outreach at retail, not a research agreement. Nobody is studying anything at a dispensary counter in Elmwood Park.
But the choice of venue is the point. MAPS has always argued that the two prohibitions are one prohibition, and that ending it means reaching people where they already are. In the United States, where they already are is a dispensary. Somewhere north of seventeen percent of American adults told Gallup this summer that they smoke cannabis. The number who have sat with a psychedelic therapist is a rounding error next to that.
There is also a personal thread here. HoneyProjects CEO Jeffrey Miller is certified in psychedelic therapies through the Vital program run by Psychedelics Today, according to the company, which puts a dispensary operator in a category that barely existed five years ago.
The store itself leans into the aesthetic overlap. The visionary artist Chris Dyer painted the interior, New Jersey muralist Olga Muzician did an exterior piece from her “Gratitude” series, and the glass case carries work made with Mothership, Toro, Sovereignty and Baby Gorilla Glass. The opening ran with sets by Tony Touch, Scram Jones and DJ Caesar.
None of which is unusual for a dispensary opening. What is unusual is the logo on the other side of the handshake.
MAPS has partnered with universities, with the Department of Defense, with clinicians and with regulators. Its cannabis work has been clinical: the study of smoked marijuana in veterans with PTSD, years of fighting the federal supply monopoly for research material. Turning up in a retail store is a different kind of move, and whether it stays a one-off or becomes a template is the thing worth watching.
The two movements have been arguing the same case in separate rooms for a long time. This is a door opening. It is a small one, in a strip of Route 46, but it is the first.
Disclosure: HoneyProjects was the presenting sponsor of the High Times Cannabis Cup: New Jersey 2026. This article is not sponsored content and was not part of that sponsorship. High Times received no payment or consideration for it, and no one outside our newsroom reviewed it before publication. Details of the partnership and the store opening come from the companies’ announcement.
