Medical marijuana's difficult start
Patients unhappy with program’s lengthy rollout, no cost certainty.
Ohio’s drawn-out process for getting its medical marijuana program off the ground has frustrated some local residents who are in the dark about when the drug will finally become available and what it will cost when it does.
“I would speculate that a lot of people are not going to be able to use it just because of the cost factor,” said Alanna Sage, who has three of the 21 conditions approved by the State Medical Board of Ohio to be treated by medical marijuana.
Medical marijuana was supposed to be in the hands of patients Saturday, but the state missed that key deadline.
It could be months before the product arrives on the shelves of local dispensaries.
“Where I’m sitting today we are targeting Jan. 1, that’s what we’re doing,” said Jimmy Gould, chairman of CannAscend Alternative, a company that will operate dispensaries in Dayton and Monroe. “But we can’t have a lot of misses.”
Sage, 64, said she bought medical marijuana legally in California for five years before moving back to Dayton last year.
The potential cost for getting the drug in Ohio is a huge concern for her. One doctor she contacted wanted $345 for a year and offered to put her on a payment plan. In California, her patient fees — not including the medicine — amounted to about $60 a year, she said.
Marijuana was the best treatment for her PTSD and fibromyalgia as well as a debilitating case of arthritis on her spine, which is not improving, Sage said.
“There’s no cure for it, so I have to manage it somehow and I don’t like taking chemical drugs if I don’t have to,” Sage said. “But I’m stuck with it because it looks like I can’t afford the medical marijuana and I’ve got to do something. I can’t not take something.”
Dr. Tim Thress of Ohio Marijuana Card is one of 222 doctors currently certified to recommend medical marijuana in Ohio. Thress, who has a new office in Sharon- ville, said patients who need medical marijuana will con- tinue to wait in pain.
“People don’t realize how much people are suffering in this country,” he said. “And we are just putting off the treatment. It’s kind of sad how we are not thinking about the actual patients.”
Ohio Mariju a na Card, which also has offices in Akron, Beavercreek, Cleve- land, Columbus, and Toledo, charges $280 for a year’s service, which can be paid through installments, Thress said. Ohio medical marijuana patients are also required to pay the state an annual $50 registration fee, though discounts may apply to veterans and indigent patients.
Thresh, who spent 30 years working as an OB-GYN, said politics have kept medicine out of the hands of peo- ple who desperately need it.
“I’m not the one making the rules,” he said. “I’m just trying to follow them.”
‘Here for good’
While a few municipalities enacted bans on marijuana facilities, there is now a recognition in the state that the industry is here for good, said Gould, whose CannAscend Alternative received provisional licenses to operate four Strawberry Fields-branded dispensa- ries, including one at 333 Wayne Ave. in Dayton and another at 300 N. Main St. in Monroe.
“The people that are pull- ing the oars now in state government — most of state government — know this is going to happen and are on board and working very diligently to not be prohibi- tive,” he said.
Gould said companies have already invested a tremen- dous amount of money on application fees, research, development and planning — and acquiring property.
“Options on the properties that everybody’s taken, those can be in the millions of dollars,” he said. “That’s a number that’s not minor. That’s a major number.”
While Gould would not discuss CannAscend Alter- native’s specific investments, he said a dispensary buildout could range from $1 mil- lion to $1.5 million.
Fees — applications, initial licenses and annual renewals — are supposed to sustain the program. Large-scale cultivators face the heftiest fees: $20,000 for the application, $180,000 for the licensing and $200,000 for annual renewals. Fees for small-scale cultivators are one-tenth of what big growers pay.
Renewal fees for the grow- ers, labs, processors and dispensaries approved by the state will run $5.9 million a year.
Despite millions invested so far, few of the state’s 13 large cultivators a nd 12 smaller growers have yet to sow seeds. But planting should pick up soon as more get final inspections and operating licenses from the state, including a large Pure Ohio Wellness grow facility at 4020 Dayton-Springfield Road in Mad River Twp., outside of Springfield.
“We’re tidying up basi- cally. We’re pretty close to the end,” said Larry Pegram, president of Pure Ohio Well- ness. “They are finishing up some of the irrigation systems, some of the lighting and stuff like that, so we are really close.”
‘Highly skilled trade’
Pure Ohio Wellness also received provisional licenses to operate dispensaries at 1875 Needmore Road in Dayton and 1711 West Main St. in Springfield. The company has also applied to process medical marijuana.
Pegram said when everything is up and running, the company’s investments will reach nearly $10 million.
“It’s a very big investment,” he said. “Obviously we hope to recoup that investment in the future.”
“Economically it’s going to have an impact on the state. There’s going to be more jobs, there’s going to be more money in the state, not only on the tax side but people having income.”
Pegram said the grow oper- ation might begin with 10-12 employees but could expand to 20 within six months. He declined to discuss the poten- tial pay, but said many posi- tions will require a scientific background.
“We’re all the way from general maintenance type people to biologists and bot- anists, we run the gamut of people,” he said. “We obviously are going to have people who are highly skilled in horticulture and growing.”
If Pure Ohio Wellness is approved to process medi- cal marijuana, Pegram said, “You end up with scientists who are turning this stuff into the oils and into medicine, so it’s a very highly-skilled trade.”
‘I felt like a zombie’
As the timeline drags on, patients like Lorrie Callahan of West Milton can do little more than wait.
Callahan, 42, whohasmultiple sclerosis, has regularly used CBD — or cannabidiol — to treat it. A recent decision by the Ohio Board of Pharmacy to require any marijuana product, including CBD oil, to be dispensed by a licensed medical marijuana entity angered Callahan.
CBD is a non-psychoactive product of hemp that is legal, yet it will be off-limits temporarily because the dispensaries are not yet open.
“It angers me quite a lot,” Callahan said. “I’ve had MS for 10 years. This is something that has changed my life dramatically.”
Grant Miller, spokesman for the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, said the agency decided to issue the statement on CBD oils after receiving a lot of questions about its status. Currently, the Board of doesn’t have plans to take enforcement action against places selling CBD oils as it tries to get the word out, he said.
“If this continues to be sold illegally in places even after receiving this information, we’ll re-assess our efforts,” Miller said.
Call a han said she has struggled to find the right medicine to relieve her pain, at one time taking a dozen pills a day.
“I was bedridden for a while. I don’t want to be like that anymore,” she said. “When I was taking all those pills I felt like a zombie. I couldn’t have a life.”