Utah’s first medical marijuana dispensary open

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s first medical marijuana dispensary opened Monday as the state began a slow rollout of a program that will allow residents with certain health conditions to use pot for medicinal purposes.

The online application process for people to get medical marijuana cards started on Sunday.

To get cards, people must first receive a recommendation from one of 60 approved health professionals, said Rich Oborn, director of the state’s Center for Medical Cannabis.

The group includes doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants who received training to approve patient cards

The first dispensary, Dragonfly Wellness, opened in an old bank building in Salt Lake City, using the original bank vaults and structure, the Deseret News reported. “We’ve got a number of different community advocates that have been fighting for patient rights and fighting for our community so that way people have a safer alternative to medicine,” said Narith Panh, the company’s chief strategy officer. “This is for them today, too.”

A second dispensary is expected to open this month and seven more by June. The final five dispensaries, which will be called pharmacies, will open after July, Oborn said.

Patients with qualifying conditions have been able to use marijuana with a doctor’s letter since December 2018, but they had to go to other states to get it.

Those letters are valid through the end of 2020, but they don’t allow patients to buy medical marijuana products in Utah.

People seeking medical marijuana cards are most likely to cite having chronic pain condition, defined as pain that lasts longer than two weeks, Oborn said.

Utah became the 33rd state to legalize medical marijuana after voters passed a ballot initiative in November 2018 that legalized doctor-approved marijuana treatment for certain health conditions including cancer, chronic pain and epilepsy.