Ohio is at least four months behind in launching medical marijuana sales
Ohio’s medical marijuana industry is scheduled to officially launch this weekend, but state officials say it is still nowhere near ready. The full launch is delayed indefinitely, despite the best efforts of the State Medical Board, Board of Pharmacy, and Board of Commerce.
Ohio has already seen many setbacks in its progress towards launching medical marijuana. Now, officials say further delays will be the result of dispensaries that are not prepared to open. However, these retailers are waiting for approved product to sell from processors that only received their clearance to operate last month.
On Tuesday, the various regulatory boards reported their progress. The Board of Pharmacy has issued 56 licenses to dispensaries; the Board of Commerce has approved 10 processors, and the medical board has certified 222 doctors.
Regulators say their schedule for facility inspections stretches through October. Meanwhile, the state’s first Level 1 marijuana grow facility just began planting last month. The facility broke ground eight months ago and it will be another four months at least before they have any product to distribute.
Buckeye Relief in Eastlake, Ohio has planted 10,000 seeds so far. The first round of 5,000 plants recently left the seedling room for the vegetation room, where the female plants were separated from the males. They are now in the grow room, where they will spend the next nine weeks growing flowers.
The flowers will have plenty of time to cure while Buckeye waits for patient registration to begin and dispensaries to open. They estimate it will be early 2019 before their product arrives on dispensary shelves.
