COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — More than 200 outlets across the state have applied to convert their medical marijuana licenses to dual-use cannabis licenses.
Translation? They want to sell recreational weed, and although seven months have passed since Ohio voters gave them the green light to do so, not one legal dispensary has opened.
ABC 6 learned on Friday that the state’s Division of Cannabis Control has received exactly 235 such applications, some of which were approved for testing labs, cultivators and processors.
Still, Ohioans cannot walk into a dispensary and buy recreational marijuana, but that may be about to change.
As of this week, the Division has begun to issue dual-use provisional licenses to dispensaries,” a state spokesman said in an email to ABC 6 on Friday.
Also in that email, it was indicated that 20 dispensaries have been licensed.
But there are still hoops to jump through. The state spokesman wrote that the dual-use provisional license “does not permit the holder to sell non-medical cannabis,” adding that it is just a placeholder.
Not until a licensee meets “the necessary requirements to obtain a Certificate of Operation and the Division processes all required documents” can a dispensary actually open for business.
