Medical marijuana is now legal in Ohio, and two companies are setting up shop in Cleveland. Green Thumb Industries Ohio, located at 1222-1224 Prospect Avenue East and The Botanist, located at 3865 Lakeside Avenue East, are both national chains.

While this is a big step for Ohio, there are still many restrictions on what can be sold. The most popular method of use for marijuana is smoking, but that is still illegal in Ohio.  However, the law also states that the sale of “Plant material for administration with the use of vaporizing devices” is legal. This means that dispensaries can sell flowers and other plant material under the assumption that the patient will not smoke it, but they are not responsible for verifying this. Dispensaries can sell various oils, capsules or lotions as well as a variety of other forms of the drug.

There are 21 approved conditions that qualify one to obtain an Ohio Medical Marijuana Card. These conditions include Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and cancer. However these are just a few of the many medical conditions that make it possible to receive an Ohio Medical Marijuana Card.

Ohio is the sixth state in America to decriminalize cannabis and the 25th state to legalize medical marijuana. Every provisional license to operate a dispensary is tied to a physical location and as of press time there are 60 planned locations. Five of those locations are in Cuyahoga County.

Overall, Case Western Reserve University students are happy with the progress in healthcare that is happening in the city of Cleveland. Pavan Mody, a first-year student, said he was fine with the dispensary and said that medical marijuana is “definitely safer than some of the prescription medication that is currently legal.”