Ohio had 185 applications for licenses to grow marijuana

7/5/2017

Alessandro Cesario, the director of cultivation, looks at marijuana plants at the Desert Grown Farms cultivation facility in Las Vegas. Nearly 200 prospective medical-marijuana growers submitted applications to the state for cultivation licenses in Ohio.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

COLUMBUS — Nearly 200 prospective medical-marijuana growers submitted applications to the state for cultivation licenses, but the Department of Commerce won’t say yet where those applicants want to operate.

The department announced Wednesday that the state received 185 applications last month for two licenses: Level II cultivators for grow operations with cultivation areas of 3,000 square feet or less, and Level I cultivators, which can have up to 25,000 square feet. The state will issue 12 of each.

The commerce department announced it had 109 Level I applications, and 76 Level II applications. The deadline for Level II cultivators was June 16, while the cutoff for larger operations was Friday.

The state released the names of businesses that applied for the licenses, a contact name, and the license type. But more relevant information about the applications, including where the businesses propose to operate, has not been released, despite repeated requests by Ohio media outlets.

House Bill 523, the Ohio law that last year legalized marijuana for medical use only, left it up to state agencies to determine the rules for medical marijuana’s cultivation, processing, and sale. Licenses will be announced in September.

Commerce department staff had said the applicants weren’t public documents because the department had not used them. When asked Wednesday how that still could be true when the department had compiled a list of application names, a spokesman said the list of names was all she had.

Check out this link for more information about the application process.