Marijuana dispensary, veteran-run farm in works in North Stonington

North Stonington — A large project with a medical marijuana dispensary, a holistic wellness center and an agricultural development focusing on assisting military veterans may be making its way to town.

Earlier this month the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission approved a change-of-use application submitted by Dr. Stefana Pecher for a building on 391 Norwich-Westerly Road, which would allow the property to potentially serve as a medical marijuana dispensary, as well as offer holistic services.

Pecher’s plan is to divide an existing 4,200-square-foot building into two equal halves. One half would serve as the dispensary and the other half would be designated for health care as a holistic wellness center. She is in the process of submitting her application to the state in order to a receive a license to run a medical marijuana dispensary, something she added she is not guaranteed to receive.

Pecher, also known as the Country Doc, said that her practice feels the need to expand its current wellness center, which she says treats more than 6,000 patients from all around New England. By offering holistic services in another building, it would allow the business to expand its offerings and add things such as a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which would be used to help treat kids with autism and individuals with traumatic brain injuries,

strokes or resistant Lyme disease, among other things.

Overall, the dispensary and holistic services facility are just part of a larger project that Pecher and a group of locals are pursuing, which is focused on expanding holistic wellness offerings in North Stonington and offering a potential model for assisting military veterans.

“The building is much larger than needed so we were going to do one half for the dispensary, one half for holistic services and then as part of the greater project ... we have the opportunity to purchase a farm and we have formed a nonprofit called Better Together CT,” Pecher said. “This nonprofit will be retraining and reintegrating veterans in agriculture and forestry.”

Plan for veterans

The plan, Pecher said, is to acquire a 32-acre farm located off of Route 2 and build a large greenhouse where, in partnership with a company called AgriSci, veterans will grow produce that will be sold to local restaurants and the like.

“Our thinking is to do farm to table,” Pecher said. “The veterans will learn how to grow in this medium and we will pre-order sales to restaurants that want to buy produce that is organic and clean but veteran operated.”

Pecher added the hope is that the farm would allow veterans to socially integrate back into civilian life while also having found a social network again. And that idea is one that some veterans think would be incredibly useful.

“When I came back from Iraq, I never felt comfortable in civilian life,” said Doug Capazzi, a veteran who was deployed twice and is the president of Better Together CT, the nonprofit that would be in charge of the farm. Capazzi also is involved with several other veterans groups, including Guardians of the Purple Heart CT and an equine therapy service.

Capazzi said many veterans miss the camaraderie of being around people who have served, and adjusting from always having a mission and a sense of urgency back to civilian life can be challenging. He added that often there are things that civilians and civilian employers just don’t understand about working and interacting with veterans. Sometimes it is as simple as just not sneaking up on them, and other times it can be more complex, such as certain triggers.

“After 10 years I still find it difficult to adjust and I wish there was a program set up where I could go to work with a group of veterans, have that camaraderie with those veterans ... and be able to have that ability to get back into the civilian world slowly without being thrown into a cold pool,” Capazzi said.

Positive reception

So far, for the most part, Pecher and Capazzi said reception to the project has been mostly positive, especially when it comes to addressing the needs of veterans. They said many people already have expressed an interest in volunteering or helping develop a therapy curriculum, one restaurant already is interested in making an order and several town leaders have stepped up to help, as well.

For example, Carolyn Howell, a member of the Board of Finance, helped develop a business plan for Better Together CT, and is involved as the organization’s secretary, Pecher said.

And even if Pecher is not granted the medical dispensary license, which she said fits into her holistic vision for the project, the other parts of the project still would move forward. For her and Capazzi, it is just too important.

“I’ve lost plenty of friends because they couldn’t handle it anymore and they ended up killing themselves,” Capazzi said. “I can’t afford to lose someone else because there is nothing like this for veterans out there.”