West Virginia regulators awarded 10 medical cannabis cultivation permits as one of the country’s slowest MMJ programs to launch took a major step toward a possible market start in spring 2021.
The cultivation license award winners included at least three multistate operators – New York-based Columbia Care, Illinois-headquartered Verano Holdings and Massachusetts-based Holistic Industries – as well as a number of out-of-state and West Virginia investors.
Still to be licensed are up to 10 processors and up to 100 dispensaries.
State records show that the MSOs also have applied for processor and dispensary licenses.
Voters legalized medical cannabis in April 2017, but the program has faced bureaucratic snags and opposition by a federal prosecutor.
A state health department official said earlier this year the agency is planning for product to be available in the spring of 2021.
The state has banned smokable flower and edibles, which are the leading sales drivers in other MMJ markets.
The other businesses that won cultivation licenses (with the location of the area code of the primary contact):
- Armory Pharmaceutical, Maryland.
- Blue Ridge Botanicals, Texas.
- Buckhannon Grow, Ohio.
- Harvest Care Medical, Maryland.
- Mountaineer Holding, West Virginia.
- Mountaineer Integrated Care, Pennsylvania.
- Tariff Labs, West Virginia.
