Two of the five companies selected to grow and sell medical marijuana in New York will open dispensaries in Erie County, the state announced Friday.
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Salus Scientific lost out on one of the five winning slots for the lucrative rights to manufacture and dispense medical marijuana in New York, and with it the 200 local jobs the company estimated they would have brought to the area. Empire State Health Solutions will manufacture at a facility in Fulton County at the former Tryon School for Boys.
We’re told Columbia Care LLC has been granted a license to manufacture and dispense marijuana in Monroe County.
Only Bloomfield Industries will grow marijuana outside of Hudson Valley in a yet-to-be-specified location in Queens County. Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker would only say the decision on which applications to approve was made by “a team of professionals” in state government.
The state health department in April posted an online application for medical marijuana growing licenses, and forty-three companies applied. We want these products on the market as soon as possible. Their stores will be located in Yonkers (on Neppherhan Ave.in Westchester County), Kingston (Ulster County), Syracuse and Albany. Advocates of the marijuana law have called the bill, which only allows for five manufacturers and 20 dispensaries and prohibits smoking, “too restrictive”. The state law approved last year barred smokeable forms of medical marijuana.
The highest on a scale of 1 to 100 was PharmaCann LLC, which would be based in Orange County for growing and have dispensaries in Erie, Onondaga, Albany and Bronx counties. It is at the dispensary that patients will be able to walk in with a prescription and leave with medical marijuana oil. “It was to make sure that we can be operational and have products on shelves within the six month timeline that the state has set. That money will help us with property taxes and in providing programs and services to seniors, veterans and those who are struggling financially”.
The company is now licensed in five other states. But I have to tell you the magnificent transformation in some of these kids I’ve seen in Minnesota and elsewhere with just a little bit of CBD is truly remarkable. “There are huge areas of the state where patients will have to travel enormous distances to get medicine”, said Julie Netherland, a deputy state director at the Drug Policy Alliance, a national drug reform group. It has scientists, pharmacists and staff from New York, led by Chief Operating Officer Michael Newell.
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“It’s a very pharmaceutical cannabis industry that’s been created in New York, as opposed to loose cannabis systems elsewhere”, said Miller.
