FLORENCE, Ky. — Dispensaries in Kentucky are counting down the days until they can start selling medical cannabis, and so are the more than 11,000 people who have medical cards.
Three dispensaries will open in Northern Kentucky. Just this week, Gov. Andy Beshear said the first cultivator in the state has plants growing.
Dispensaries in Northern Kentucky are eying sales as soon as October.
"We're in Kentucky. I mean, it's a horse race. It really is. Whoever can be there when the starting gun goes off is going to have the best chance," Chad Johns, operations manager for Bluegrass CannaCare, said.
Kentucky says that with the first cultivator growing plants in southwest Kentucky, cannabis will soon be ready to sell.
Bluegrass CannaCare dispensary in Florence expects to start sales soon.
"We're shooting for October or November to open up the dispensary," Johns said.
It is the only dispensary in Boone County so far. About a month before opening, they'll be renovating a former phone company building right off Interstate-71-75.
The dispensary that won the lottery in Campbell County planned to open in a former bank building in Alexandria. However, according to the state Medical Cannabis Office, it has already given its license to another dispensary.
"There are people who buy them to flip them to make a quick dollar," Johns said.
Or, he says, up-front costs could be too much. Johns says they'll have paid $70,000 in licensing fees to the state.
"That is just to maintain a piece of paper that says we are allowed to sell cannabis," he said.
"But in our region specifically, there's about 800 cardholders. Now granted, anybody from the state can come all the way up to us," Johns said.
Johns expects that number to skyrocket in Northern Kentucky once sales start.
"The state has been ravaged with opioid addiction. If we have an option that can get at least one person off that horrible affliction of opioid addiction, then it's worth it. Period," Johns said.
Beshear says additional licenses for processors and cannabis testing labs are expected to begin operating in the coming weeks as Kentucky inches closer to medical sales.