COLUMBUS, Ohio - In the year since Ohio dispensaries began selling medical marijuana, about 4,275 jobs have been created, according to a report Friday from the cannabis information, news and product website Leafly.

Also on Friday, the state announced it cleared another dispensary to open its doors. Herbology, at 1220 Buchholzer Blvd., Cuyahoga Falls, has received the state’s 49th certificate of operation. That leaves eight provisionally licensed dispensaries to open their doors.

As of January, there were 243,700 full-time equivalent jobs in medical or recreational marijuana nationwide, up 15% from the prior year. That’s a 15% year-over-year increase, the report said.

The state also keeps tabs on medical marijuana employees, but does not differentiate between full-time and part-time workers.

The Ohio Board of Pharmacy has licensed 951 medical marijuana dispensary employees — including 141 who are owners, prospective owners, officers or board or prospective members of entities seeking dispensary licenses, 326 who are administrators or other people responsible for the daily operations of licensed dispensaries and 484 support staff who work at the dispensaries but don’t have the authority to make operational decisions.

The Ohio Department of Commerce says 1,686 employees with active badges work for cultivators, testing labs and processors.

Jobs in the marijuana industry aren’t specifically broken down in federal labor reports. Leafly said it used data from each state, statistics generated by each state’s regulatory agency and work from cannabis-focused economists. It didn’t consider people who work in the hemp or CBD industry.

Close to 56,000 Ohioans have purchased medical marijuana at the state’s dispensaries. They’ve purchased $68.1 million in flower, edibles, oils, tinctures and other products.

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