Published
Kentucky Health News
Gov. Andy Beshear said Kentucky expects to open its first medical marijuana dispensary “within the next couple of weeks.”
During his weekly press conference, Beshear said the first dispensary will likely be in Ohio County and is set to have “product on its shelf” in weeks.
“We believe it’s going to scale up very quickly from that first moment,” Beshear said.
Beshear reported that 1,756 Kentuckians have received their e-certifications to be able to access medical marijuana for cancer, 930 for chronic nausea and 15,412 for chronic pain who “might have otherwise been taking opioids, which is one of the reasons that we’ve pushed this program so hard.”
In addition, he said 1,453 had received their e-certifications for multiple sclerosis, 7,631 for post-traumatic stress disorder and 749 for seizure disorders.
Kentucky’s law limits medical marijuana to state residents living with at least one of six qualifying medical conditions, including cancer of any type or form, epilepsy and other intractable seizure disorders, chronic or severe pain, multiple sclerosis, muscle spasms and spasticity, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and chronic nausea or cyclical vomiting syndrome.
Regarding marijuana business licensing, Beshear said the state has so far approved 80 business licenses, 16 cultivators, 10 processors, 48 dispensaries and six safety compliance facilities. Additionally, the state has certified 506 doctors to issue medical cannabis recommendations.
Beshear also noted that Office of Medical Cannabis had staff in three different locations completing facility inspections.
“So what that means is, within one year of awarding cultivation licenses, we now have multiple cultivators with harvested product that are in the testing phase,” he said. “So we are very, very close.”
