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Ohio medical marijuana dispensaries get green light for recreational sales Tuesday

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — After months of preparations and paperwork, some of Ohio’s medical marijuana dispensaries have been given the go-ahead to begin the first non-medical sales in the state Tuesday.

More than one chain of the retail storefronts said emails started going out Friday that notified them that they had gotten dual-use certificates of operation — the final puzzle piece for recreational sales starting. Before Friday, only cultivators, processors and labs had the operational certificates, according to Division of Cannabis Control data.

Cannabis plants growing on a rooftop.
[Jo Ingles | Statehouse News Bureau]
Now, dispensaries in both Ohio’s bigger cities and smaller towns and villages have gotten the green light they’ve been waiting on. Among them are locally based chains like the Ohio Cannabis Company and Terrasana and national ones like Trulieve and the Cannabist Company.

“I am just so excited to be part of this historic day,” Ohio Cannabis Company owner Brian Wingfield said in a statement. “If you would have asked me nine years ago, I would’ve guessed that we would be lucky to have medical, let alone going recreational.”

Wingfield and other retailers have said long lines are almost guaranteed at first for non-medical, of-age customers.

“We’re going to try to move as quickly as possible, while also making sure we’re not making dispensing errors or anything that could make us lose our license or anything like that. We’re hoping for a lot of people, but also hoping that a lot of people are patient with us,” Terrasana spokesperson Nikki Stanley said in an interview.

Stanley said the gulf between when applications went live in June and when Terrasana actually got its certificate of operations for its four locations allowed them to add additional staff and design marketing materials.

“All the things you can imagine have already been done because we did expect it to be a little bit earlier, so we feel very prepared,” she said.

Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord) — who has been heavily involved in cannabis policy at the state level — purported sales could start as soon as June but no later than September. Licensing took longer, ultimately.

A spokesperson for the Division of Cannabis Control offered few details in a statement Friday afternoon, writing the Division would make “a formal announcement on Monday.”

According to earlier Division statistics, nearly 200 medical marijuana dispensaries had submitted applications for dual-use licenses. The spokesperson did not share how many would receive their operational certificates prior to Tuesday.