Ohio officials have followed through on plans to more than double the state’s current number of medical cannabis dispensaries, announcing this week that they have approved 70 new retail licenses that were issued through a lottery.
The Ohio Board of Pharmacy, which regulates the state’s medical cannabis dispensaries, announced the license recipients May 16, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer.
The board conducted the lottery earlier this year, the news outlet reported, and then reviewed the applications drawn to ensure they met the business, security and patient care requirements for a license.
A certain number of the new cannabis retail licenses were allocated for each dispensary district, which contain a county or a group of counties, according to the Enquirer.
The full list of provisional license recipients can be viewed on the program’s website.
Ohio regulators approved an increased number of medical cannabis dispensaries last year with plans to license up to 73 new retailers.
The Ohio Board of Pharmacy set an initial limit of 60 dispensary licenses in 2017, based on an estimated patient count of between 12,000 and 24,000 over two years, the Enquirer reported.
The state currently has 58 licensed dispensaries with more than 261,000 patients enrolled in the program, according to the news outlet.
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More than 1,400 applications rolled in for the new licenses, which were meant to ease patient complaints of high prices and the need to drive long distances to find certain products, the Enquirer reported.
Provisional licensees now have 270 days—until February 2023—to build out their dispensaries and undergo an inspection from the Board of Pharmacy. Businesses that pass final inspection will then receive a certificate of operation, which allows them to open to patients, according to a Cleveland.com report.
Board officials are now working with three additional companies to obtain more information to determine whether they will receive the last three provisional dispensary licenses, the news outlet reported.
