The CY+ Dispensary, operated by Cresco Labs, will open its doors at 9:00 am on January 16 in the small Ohio village of Wintersville where it will carry some 30 strains of Ohio’s finest flowers.
Dry bud is the only option available at this point in that there are no licensed processors functioning in Ohio as yet.
Shortly after the announcement that Cresco’s CY+ would open in Wintersville, an additional four dispensaries were approved to open in other parts of Ohio.
If all goes as planned, the rest of the Buckeye state’s MMJ dispensaries – 56 in total – should opening in the coming weeks and months.
Throughout Ohio, dispensaries will initially offer only a selection of flower products for vaporization only – smoking is not permissible in Ohio nor is growing it at home. Prices are expected to be high.
Executive Director at National Cannabis Industry Association of Ohio, Thomas Rosenberger, told the local press that Ohio’s medical marijuana program will come on line piecemeal over the next several months.
Cultivators, processors, testing labs and dispensaries are at different stages of development, Rosenberger said.
Currently there are twenty-one qualifying conditions in Ohio’s MMJ program although the Ohio Medical Board opened a two-month period during which it accepted petitions from the community to add to the list.
In mid-January, the medical board settled on six new conditions it will further review and consider adding: general anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic anxiety, autism and opioid addiction.
It could take the medical board up to six months to decide which conditions will qualify to be added to the list.
Ohio’s medical marijuana program, plagued most of the past year with chaos and delays, was meant to be operational in September 2018.
Meanwhile, more than 3,575 patients have registered in the program since the registry went live in early December.
Those numbers are expected to shoot up as people seek MMJ cards to finally connect with one of Ohio’s 340 physicians certified to recommend medical marijuana.
