When medical marijuana becomes available in Maryland in the coming weeks, patients may only find one place ready to dispense the drug on the Eastern Shore.

Peninsula Alternative Health won approval Monday from the state's Medical Cannabis Commission to make marijuana available to patients. The Salisbury business is the first dispensary to receive a license in the nine-county region.

“We’ve been working on this now for three years to get to this actual date of being fully licensed," CEO Anthony Darby said. "So this was a real rewarding moment for the team.”

The company has leased a building — a long-vacant former veterinary clinic at Snow Hill Road and East Locust Street in Salisbury — and transformed it into a dispensary office.

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Darby said more than 300 patients have pre-registered to obtain medical marijuana from the facility — far more than the company expected. The medical marijuana commission gave preliminary approval to 102 companies statewide to open as dispensaries, but Peninsula is one of just six that has received a license.

“So our market share is going to be much, much larger than we had planned," Darby said.

The state's medical marijuana program has been mired in legal challenges and charges of bias since Maryland legalized the drug for medical use in 2013. The Cannabis Commission has repeatedly pushed back dates for when marijuana will be available to patients.

The commission now expects the industry to get rolling "by the end of fall 2017," according to its website.

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Peninsula Alternative Health, which is not affiliated with Peninsula Regional Medical Center, is one of two dispensaries picked by the commission for Maryland's Senate District 37, which encompasses portions of Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot and Wicomico counties.

Darby said he plans to spend the new few weeks hiring pre-selected employees. But he was unable to say Tuesday when the company will have marijuana to dispense or how much it will have in stock.

“It’s going to take a while for the pipeline from growers to processors to come into fruition," he said.

The facility lies a short walk from the City Park. But Darby said it will operate like any other pharmacy, with the notable exception that it offers just one type of drug.

“Everything that we’ve done is very patient-centric and on a medical model, so that the folks getting cannabis from our disepensary are using it for a medical purpose," he said. "It's a legitimate medicine.”

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