Exit 26 Corridor Cannabis Guide: Plymouth, New Hampshire

Plymouth sits where the Baker River meets the Pemigewasset, a town of fewer than 7,000 year-round residents that doubles in population when Plymouth State University is in session. Interstate 93 runs past its eastern edge, making it the last real service center before the White Mountains and the natural stop for anyone heading north toward Franconia Notch or east toward Squam Lake.

That geography is why the state licensed a dispensary here. Sanctuary operates at 568 Tenney Mountain Highway, west of downtown on Route 25, and it is the only licensed counter serving Grafton County and much of Belknap and Carroll. Patients come from Bristol, Ashland, Campton, Rumney, Thornton, and towns considerably further north, since the alternatives are Lebanon over an hour southwest, Conway an hour east through the notches, or Chichester an hour south. The two-ounce ten-day purchase cap applies here as everywhere, and nothing is taxed.

Distance changes the rules in a way that matters locally. When a designated caregiver and the patients they assist all sit more than 50 miles out from the closest licensed center, state law lets that caregiver serve up to nine patients instead of five - a provision written for exactly this part of New Hampshire. The commercial frontage in town is Tenney Mountain Highway itself, with the plazas and service businesses that support the university and the through traffic, and Main Street around the common, where the downtown retail and student business sits.

New Hampshire is surrounded on three sides by legal adult-use markets and has none of its own. The only legal cannabis counter in the state is the Therapeutic Cannabis Program, created by RSA 126-X in 2013, with the first dispensary sales in 2016. Seven Alternative Treatment Centers, which state law requires to be not-for-profit entities, cover the whole state: two run by GraniteLeaf Cannabis in Merrimack and Chichester, two by Sanctuary in Plymouth and Conway, and three by Temescal Wellness in Dover, Keene, and Lebanon.

Getting in is easier than it used to be. Since a 2024 law, any adult 21 or older with a debilitating or terminal condition or symptom can be certified if the provider puts the condition in writing and attests that the benefits likely outweigh the risks. Dentists, podiatrists, optometrists, naturopaths, and providers licensed in Maine, Massachusetts, or Vermont can all certify. You mail the application and a $50 check to the program office at 29 Hazen Drive in Concord. Card holders can hold two ounces and cannot obtain more than two ounces in any ten-day period. Nothing at the register is taxed, because the state has no sales tax at all.

For everyone else, possession is decriminalized rather than legal. Three-quarters of an ounce or less, or five grams of hash, is a $100 violation for a first or second offense. An adult 21 or older carrying up to 300 milligrams of edibles bought legally in another state, still in its original child-resistant packaging, gets the same civil treatment. Selling any amount is still a felony, and unsealed cannabis has to ride in the trunk.

The 2026 session ended the way the last several did. The House passed a legalize-and-regulate bill, HB 186, 208-135 in January; the Senate tabled it. The one thing that did become law was SB 468, which lets the dispensaries grow in greenhouses instead of under lights - the legislature overrode Governor Kelly Ayotte's veto in August 2026.

Three operators hold every New Hampshire dispensary license, and each sells its own house line rather than a multi-brand shelf. GraniteLeaf Cannabis, formerly Prime ATC, runs Merrimack and Chichester. Sanctuary runs Plymouth and Conway. Temescal Wellness runs Dover, Keene, and Lebanon, and posts patient affordability discounts for veterans and for patients on SSDI, SSI, or Medicaid. There is no verified national brand shelf here and no legal hemp-THC brand to recommend, because RSA 439-A:4 does not authorize hemp products over the 0.3 percent dry-weight THC line.

Three things define the 2026 picture. The House passed HB 186 to legalize and regulate sales 208-135 in January, and the Senate tabled it, repeating the 2025 outcome for HB 198. CACR 19, which would have sent the question to voters without needing the governor's signature, never got a House vote. Then in August the legislature overrode Governor Ayotte's veto of SB 468 by 16-8 in the Senate and 257-44 in the House, allowing greenhouse cultivation intended to lower patient costs. Every seat in both chambers and the governor's office is on the November 3, 2026 ballot.