The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
The state of medical marijuana
Deadline looms for dispersing medical marijuana in Ohio
As the September deadline looms for dispersing medical marijuana in Ohio, officials say they’re ready though the product may not be.
The medical marijuana initiative was established Sept. 8, 2016, by House Bill 523 which set up the basic framework for the program.
The law placed a two-year deadline on the program becoming operational which is approaching.
Within those two years, there have been a number of other deadlines to get the program, which is under the auspices of three different state agencies, operational.
These include: rules for dispensaries, cultivators and doctors who are certified to recommend the
drug.
Of the three agencies in charge of the program, State Board of Pharmacy and the State Medical Board say their parts are ready to roll, whereas the third, officials with the state Department of Commerce, said their part may take a bit more time.
State Board of Pharmacy
Grant Miller, a spokesperson for the state Board of Pharmacy, said the rollout is going fine.
In the program, the pharmacy board deals mainly with dispensaries, which are basically pharmacies where medical marijuana can be purchased, and the registry of patients and caregivers who can purchase.
The board announced the licenses for dispensaries June 4 of this year.
Of those 56 licenses across the state, one is in Lorain, two in Elyria, one in Sandusky and one in Huron.
{The board announced the licenses for dispensaries June 4 of this year. Of those 56 licenses across the state, one is in Wickliffe and the other in Painesville Township.}
Miller said the application process began late in 2017.
“It took us a number of months to review everything and then make sure the people qualified correctly,” he said. “There are some areas that have more than others, but we deliberately cut up the state into a number of districts.”
Most districts contain more than one county, but larger counties like Cuyahoga and Hamilton counties, are districts on their own, he said.
Miller said the board has been in constant contact with the licensees and the companies have begun their preparations for the rollout.
“Whether they have to build an entirely new building, or work on an existing building that they have access to, with 56 different licensees, they’re all going to be at different stages at different times,” he said. “But we’re always there and ready to talk to them and give them answers on whatever they may need.”
On the patient and caregiver side, the registry is ready for the rollout, but won’t be implemented just yet, Miller said.
“It’s been developed, it’s been tested,” he said. “We’re very confident in its functionality.”
He likened the registry to the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System, also known as OARRS, which currently keeps track of opioid prescriptions.
“It’s actually a two-step process,” Miller said. “The physician adds them in, then the patient or caregiver will actually finish the registration on their own.
“Then the physician will be able to put those (marijuana) recommendations into that registry as well.
“So that when a patient with an active registration and an active recommendation goes to a dispensary that we have open, they’ll be able to get their medical marijuana dispensed to them.”
State Medical Board
Tessie Pollock, a spokesperson for the state Medical Board, said that section of the program also is ready for the rollout.
The Medical Board is tasked with certifying physicians to recommend the medicine.
Due to federal regulations, because marijuana still is illegal on the federal level, doctors can’t “prescribe” the drug.
At the time of this writing, 185 doctors in the state can recommend marijuana, 10 of which applied within The Morning Journal coverage area.
{At the time of this writing, 185 doctors in the state can recommend marijuana, six of which applied within The News-Herald coverage.}
Physicians can become certified after undergoing two hours of training, go
through an online portal and apply and the Medical Board approves new certifications monthly, Pollock said.
Medical marijuana can be recommended for conditions laid out by the Medical Board.
These conditions are: AIDS, positive status for HIV, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy or another seizure disorder, fibromyalgia, glaucoma, hepatitis C, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, pain that is either chronic and severe or intractable, Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, sickle cell anemia, spinal cord disease or injury, Tourette’s syndrome, traumatic brain injury and ulcerative colitis.
Petitions to add new conditions to the list will be accepted before Nov. 1, at medicalmarijuana.ohio.gov.
Department of Commerce
Stephanie Gostomski, a spokesperson for the state Department of Commerce, said that the two-year timeline was very aggressive.
Due to the nature of the business of growing, there may not be medicine ready for dispensary shelves in September, Gostomski said.
Of the 24 cultivators licensed to grow in the state, 12 larger and 12 smaller facilities, only two smaller ones have received certificates of operation as of July 27; one in late-June and the other in mid-July.
Gostomski said these certificates of operation give the growers authority to actually begin growing and are only dispersed after the cultivators have built their facilities to exact specifications they outlined in their applications and have met all local building codes.
Once those hurdles are
passed, the state will give a final inspection before the cultivators are certified.
The large cultivator site in Huron, run by OPC Cultivation LLC, is scheduled for inspection in August.
The smaller site in Oberlin, run by Ascension BioMedical LLC, is scheduled for inspection in August and the smaller site in Grafton, run by Farkas Farms LLC, is scheduled for inspection in September.
{The large grow site in Eastlake, run by Buckeye Relief LLC, is scheduled for inspection in July.}
Once the cultivators receive their certification, according to Gostomski, it will be up to them as to when they will begin planting and harvesting.
Local opinions
Oberlin City Councilman Kelley Singleton introduced legislation inviting the industry to the city.
Council passed the law May 1, 2017.
Singleton said he stands by his decision to have medical marijuana in Oberlin.
“I think it’s the future,” he said. “It’s going to happen. The state passed a law to make it legal, so why not capitalize that?”
Singleton said he works down the street from the Ascension BioMedical facility and has watched the construction.
Despite a little delay between the company’s contractor and the city, he said he hopes they can make the deadline and start producing.
He said he disagrees with the way the state has rolled out the program.
“It seems they did everything they could to make this not come out,” Singleton said. “The way that they timed the licenses, the whole process; how long they’ve taken to roll this out and then set deadlines. It’s like they’ve set it up to fail.”
Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer said his city is ready for the industry.
Lorain has a licensed dispensary run by GTI Ohio LLC on Cooper Foster Park Road.
An organization seeking a larger cultivation license which wanted to locate in the city was denied.
But Ritenauer said the city is awaiting word on a possible processing facility.
“We’re ready for it, and we’ll abide by all the laws that the state set out,” he said.