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Medical Marijuana Growers Prepare to Harvest, but Dispensaries Are Not Ready

Photo of marijuana leaves
JO INGLES
/
OHIO PUBLIC RADIO

Several large and small cultivators of marijuana for Ohio’s Medical Marijuana Program say they plan to be harvesting their products soon. That doesn’t mean patients will be able to buy it anytime soon.

Stephanie Gostomski with the Ohio Department of Commerce says marijuana growers won’t be able to do anything with their harvest for a while. 

“For that product to make it to the shelves, to make it to the dispensaries, it needs to be tested by a licensed lab and that has yet to happen. It also needs to make it into a licensed dispensary and at this time, all of the dispensaries in the state have provisional licenses,” she says.

Gostomski says she can’t say when the testing labs and dispensaries will be ready to take the products.

She says they are private businesses that have to deal with suppliers, zoning and other issues. But she says once they have everything in place, the state can respond quickly to do the inspections and issue the licenses.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.