Officials with Ohio’s medical marijuana program say it won’t be fully in operation by September 8, two years from the date the law creating the program was signed.
Provisional licenses for processing labs, testing labs and dispensaries will be awarded in May and June. And since growers just got licenses in November, Stephanie Gostomski with the Ohio Department of Commerce says the program won’t be in full force right away.
“We expect that there will be licensed operators for all license types in order to ensure Ohio patients will have access to safe medical marijuana on September 8th, recognizing this is private industry and the individual licensees will make their own operating decisions," Gostomski says.
That means dispensaries will have some stock on the shelves but not every dispensary or grower will be in operation at first. But the agency says lawsuits over how the licenses were awarded won’t stall the program.