Scroll the Sherwood Chamber of Commerce’s business directory and you’ll find a new listing: Natural Relief Dispensary cut the ribbon today on its new location in Sherwood, marking the first medical marijuana dispensary in that city. The facility, which sits on a previously vacant lot at 3107 E. Kiehl Ave., projects an opening date late this week.

The dispensary was a project of Michael Faught, who’d hoped to be involved in daily operations at the dispensary after his retirement in 2018 as CEO of Roberts-McNutt, a roofing and waterproofing contractor, as Rebekah Hall reported for the Arkansas Times in January of 2019. Faught died in June of that year, from ALS. From that January 2019 report:


“When I went into the Air Force,” [Faught said,] “it was in 1978, and [on] the third day of my basic training, I broke my back,” he said. “I’ve had four lower back surgeries, and I have a really bad back, that’s why the [Department of Veteran Affairs] has taken me to 100 percent disability. And currently … they’ve got me in a wheelchair. So at my dispensary, I’ll have to be in my wheelchair, but that’s okay because I’ll still be very involved.”

Our staff photographer Brian Chilson documented Natural Relief Dispensary’s ribbon cutting ceremony, which was moved indoors due to rain, and photographed the (yet to be stocked with inventory) dispensary site.

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