COLUMBUS, Ohio – For a month now, Ohio adults aged 21 and older have been able to purchase marijuana at dispensaries licensed for medical and recreational sales. As of Friday, 123 dispensaries are dual-use.
And more are on the way, although they probably won’t open as swiftly as the first batch. Many in the first batch opened around two months from the time their owners submitted applications to the state, since they were already operating as medical dispensaries.
So far, 121 companies have applied for the next phase of recreational dispensary licensing, most of them in Ohio’s largest metropolitan areas, said Tom Brockman, a spokesman for the Ohio Division of Cannabis Control.
The launch of Ohio’s recreational cannabis market on August 6 has set the stage for significant growth, with early data showing a 45% sales increase at various marijuana shops in just two weeks. Wholesale performance has also been strong.
“Ohio began non-medical sales on Aug. 6, so full AU rules aren’t out yet, limiting growth. In the first 26 days, total rec/med sales reached $75.6M, implying an annualized run rate of $1.06B, compared to $480M in 2Q24 (just med). We expect Ohio to reach 3-4x its current med base once the full AU program is in place,” Pablo Zuanic, senior analyst at Zuanic & Associates, wrote in a Friday night note.
Meanwhile, the new batch of dispensaries are known as 10(B) licensees, a reference to the section of law Ohioans passed at the ballot box last November legalizing marijuana for adult use.
The state this week began notifying some of the applicants that they received a provisional license. That doesn’t give them permission to open, but once their space is ready to open they must show that they’ve complied with Ohio’s security requirements, have cash register systems that can add the special 10% adult-use marijuana tax to sales and that they can send the revenue to the state. For those that are pursuing a dual-use license, they will have to agree to keep inventory available for medical patients.
“The timeline of those 10(B) Certificate of Operation approvals will depend on a variety of factors such as whether they are still under construction, can complete the required inspections, and have the appropriate staff badged,” Brockman said.
A majority of the businesses applied for locations near Ohio’s population centers – with around 70 of the applicants proposing sites in Cuyahoga, Summit, Franklin and Hamilton counties.
The applicants have familiar names– Shangri-La, Buckeye Relief, Green Thumb Industries, among numerous others. These companies already operate medical and dual-use dispensaries throughout the state.
Read more at Cleveland.Com
