Ohio wants to double medical pot dispensaries
Ohio plans to grow the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the state by more than twofold in the next year.
Businesses can apply for 73 new dispensary licenses this summer, bringing the total allowed to 130 statewide. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy approved the expansion Monday afternoon.
Under the plan, applicants would have to apply by the same rules as the initial 2017 application process, including security and business plan requirements. Applicants that meet the qualifications would be entered into a lottery to allocate licenses by dispensary district, which is typically one county or a group of two or three smaller counties. Licensees would be limited to five dispensary licenses total statewide, including licenses they have now.
The pharmacy board in 2017 set an initial limit of 60 dispensaries, spread amongst the state by single or multi-county districts. That number was based on an estimated patient count of between 12,000 and 24,000 over two years, said Sharon Maertenmoore, the board's director of medical marijuana operations.
There are now at least 92,772 patients with active registrations.
The board awarded 57 licenses in 2018 – three districts lacked enough qualified applicants to award the maximum number of licenses. Sales began at four dispensaries in January 2019, and most of the rest were operational by the end of the summer. Five are still haven't opened.
Patients have complained about high prices and having to drive long distances to find deals or certain products. Maerten-moore said those two factors are driving patients to not renew their cards.
“We feel that if additional dispensaries are added and patient travel decreases and due to more competition in the market, prices will decrease over time,” Maerten-moore said Monday.
The board is required to consider expansion once every two years, based on the state population, patient population and geographic distribution of patients. Ohio has fewer dispensaries per capita than Pennsylvania, which has 109 dispensaries and Michigan, with 364.
The expansion will be applied proportionate to the number of registered patients in each district:
h Franklin County: six to 15.
h Hamilton County: three to 11.
h Summit County: three to 5. The board is required to consider expansion once every two years, based on the state population, patient population and geographic distribution of patients.
In determining the number, the board reviewed the number of patients who have registered at one point since December 2018, more than 168,000 as of January 2021, to anticipate growth in the program. The expansion aimed to average 1,200 patients per dispensary per district and 300 to 600 per dispensary, a number considered to be viable revenue-wise for dispensaries.
The board hopes to avoid lawsuits and appeals from unsuccessful applicants and speed up the award process by incorporating a lottery.