Ohio Proposes Rules for Medical Marijuana Dispensaries – Here’s What You’ll Need to Get One of the 40 Licenses
Ohio medical marijuana regulators have proposed new rules for how businesses can sell cannabis to patients.
The draft rules were issued by the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, which is one of three state agencies charged with regulating the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program. The Ohio State Medical Board has released draft rules for doctors, and the Ohio Commerce Department is tasked with regulating marijuana cultivators and processors.
Here are highlights of the proposed rules for dispensaries, which can be seen in full here.
- Up to 40 dispensaries would be licensed to cover Ohio’s 88 counties.
- Applicants must have at least $250,000 in liquid assets.
- Potential dispensary owners have to pay one-time, non-refundable application fees of $5,000 (all of the fees below are non-refundable). If approved, dispensary owners would pay $80,000 every year. And there’s a $10,000 fee if the annual renewal is late.
- Each dispensary would have to designate a “key employee” responsible for daily operations, who would pay a one-time fee of $250, which includes an identification card. A “support employee” would pay a one-time fee of $100. There are biennial renewal fees involved, too.
- It would cost $5,000 for each of the following: relocation, major renovation and change in ownership.
- A $100 fee per advertisement, which must be approved by the board.
- Each dispensary would need to hire a pharmacist, physician, physician’s assistant or nurse as a clinical director to train employees and make educational materials for patients. They also would have to either be on-call or on-site during dispensary operating hours.
- Within five minutes of dispensing marijuana, the store must submit the purchase to the state’s prescription-drug monitoring program, including the patients’ name, address, phone number, gender and date of birth, as well as the prescribing doctor’s full name.
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