Ohio’s rules for dual-use marijuana licenses set to come out in June

This story was republished with permission from Crain’s Cleveland Business and written by Jeremy Nobile.

Following actions taken by the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, Ohio’s licensed medical marijuana dispensaries should be able to apply for dual-use licenses enabling non-medical (i.e. recreational) cannabis sales no later than Friday, June 7.

The rulemaking body gave final approval to those regulations during its meeting on Monday, May 13.

Under the Issue 2 ballot initiative approved by voters last fall, regulators have until September to begin awarding adult-use dispensary licenses.

But amid confusion in the market—caused by the recent legalization of recreational marijuana but no regulations in place actually allowing for adult-use sales by licensed operators—there’s been a push to make legal sales begin sooner.

This is what spawned the availability of dual-use licenses.

Jim Canepa, superintendent of Ohio’s Division of Cannabis Control, discussed the vision and purpose for these dual-use licenses in a recent Q&A with Crain’s. These licenses create a pathway for non-medical sales to commence in June.

“If that dual-use rule proposal pops out at the end of the process sometime on or prior to June 7, our application will be ready and approved through the rulemaking process. And those who have been selling already would apply by the deadline as proposed in the initiated statute,” Canepa explained.

“We would then be required to take those applications and turn them around for issuing a permit,” he continued.

“Conceptually speaking, that application would not be very complicated because they’ve already gone through all the traps to receive their permit to sell medical cannabis. So the question really comes down to a business decision on the industry side,” Canepa said. “A lot of them are multi-state operators who have to go through their corporate approval and legal channels, so that will take time.”