In accordance with Ohio’s new adult-use marijuana legislation, applications for initial dual-use marijuana licenses will be made available by the Division of Cannabis Control (DCC) on its website no later than this Friday, June 7 – a historic day in the state. The applications that will be made available this week allow medical marijuana operators to apply to the DCC for “dual-use” licenses, which permit future licensees to convert their facilities to handle both medical and adult-use marijuana.
The first licenses to be issued will not be available to the general public, but will be issued only to currently licensed medical marijuana cultivators, processors, laboratories, and dispensaries. The DCC has previously said that it hopes to issue the first dual-use licenses prior to the July 4th holiday.
Applications for adult-use-only licenses will not be made available to the general public until later this year. At that time, 50 dispensary and 40 Level III cultivator licenses are expected to be made available to eligible applicants. General applicants who are certified participants in the state’s Social Equity and Jobs Program (SEJP) will be afforded greater consideration over non-certified applicants for those licenses. The Ohio Department of Development has been tasked with creating the SEJP. However, how the DCC will prioritize SEJP-certified applicants will not be known until the DCC issues related regulations.
For a deeper dive into the adult-use statute and the current set of related marijuana regulations in the state of Ohio, please see our prior articles, here, here and here. If you need guidance or have questions, please contact the author or McGlinchey’s Cannabis team.