COLUMBUS, Ohio -- State regulators working to meet a Sept. 8 deadline to set up Ohio's medical marijuana program now say there won't be any products available to patients by that time.
Mark Hamlin, senior policy advisor to the Ohio Department of Commerce, said Tuesday the date by which marijuana plants needed to be in the ground in order to meet the deadline has passed. Plants can take 12 to 16 weeks to grow, and none of the 25 provisional grow licensees have been OK'd to start growing.
"I know the patients and patient advocates have been circling that day on their calendars and it's important to them and the fact that we are where we are in terms of the timeline, I can't stress enough, that date has been important to us," Hamlin said in an interview. "The whole purpose of this program is to provide safe, reliable and sustainable medical marijuana to the patients of Ohio who need it."
Industry observers have questioned for months whether Ohio's program would materialize under the state's aggressive time line laid out one year ago. Getting medical marijuana in the hands of patients before the statutory deadline has long been a stretch, but just a few weeks ago, state regulators said some dispensaries would offer limited products to patients on that date.
When those comments were made in April, Hamlin said, three cultivators had said they would be ready for inspections in May. But two were delayed because of a construction delay and a local inspection issue.
The department has scheduled two inspections in June and seven in July.
Bob Bridges, the patient representative on the state's medical marijuana advisory board, said a delay of even one day hurts patients. Bridges said many Ohioans are traveling to Michigan to buy marijuana to treat medical conditions and are getting arrested when they return home. Bridges said law enforcement should back off Ohioans trying to access the drug while the state's program is still getting set up.
"Marijuana should be the lowest priority for law enforcement, across the board, period," Bridges said.
Ohio passed its medical marijuana law in May 2016 but left the details up to three state agencies, including the Department of Commerce. The agencies spent several months drafting rules and accepted applications for growers, processors, testing labs and dispensaries late last year.
The law set Sept. 8 -- two years from its effective date -- as a deadline for the program to be "fully operational." By that time, legislators envisioned, patients with one of 21 qualifying medical conditions would be able to buy and use marijuana after registering through a doctor certified to recommend cannabis in Ohio.
Hamlin said the public expectation of "fully operational" has been that product will be available to patients. But the department's position is that state agencies will have awarded all of the various business licenses and have the pieces in place for the program to function.
The commerce department issued provisional cultivation licenses to 24 companies -- 12 for up to 3,000 square feet and 12 for up to 25,000 square feet -- in November and an additional large-scale grower in May.
To get a final certificate of operation, each facility must pass a state inspection and certify they are meeting all state rules and regulations. They have nine months from the time they get the initial provisional license to pass inspection.
Pure Ohio Wellness LLC's large-scale grow facility in Springfield was inspected last month but has not yet received a final certificate of operation. Two others, small-scale growers, are scheduled for inspections in the coming weeks and seven are scheduled in July.
Hamlin said importing more mature plants from other states is not an option because bringing cannabis across state lines would draw federal scrutiny, and Ohio law and rules require plants to be tagged and tracked early in their growth cycle.
Hamlin's comments come the day after the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy awarded 56 provisional licenses to operate dispensaries across the state. Licenses for testing labs and product processors, also under the Commerce Department, are expected to be awarded this month. Patient registrations are expected to begin in July.