PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK/ROXANA GONZALEZThe wait is almost over: Greater Cincinnati is about to get its first operating medical marijuana dispensary.

The State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy today certified Lebanon medical marijuana dispensary About Wellness Ohio, making it the 16th Ohio medical marijuana dispensary with a certificate of operation since the first round of dispensaries began opening in January of 2019.

According to the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program, there are a total of 56 dispensaries with provisional licenses throughout the state, which means they have six months to show that they are compliant with the regulations required to receive a certificate of operation. Three dispensaries with the provisional license — Green Rx LLC, Pharmacann Ohio LLC and Care Med Associates LLC — are in Hamilton County. It is unclear when those will open.

About Wellness Ohio is located in a strip mall off of Genntown Road in Lebanon. The store hopes to start selling medicinal marijuana products next week.

Ohio’s medicinal marijuana program has had a slow start — it was supposed to be up and running last September, but legal battles and licensing complications meant that it didn’t launch until December last year, when patient registries opened. Since that time, almost 25,000 Ohioans have successfully registered as patients and almost 10,000 have purchased medicinal marijuana.

A person with any of the following conditions may be eligible to buy medicinal marijuana under the state’s program: AIDS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy or another seizure disorder, fibromyalgia, glaucoma, hepatitis C, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, pain that is either chronic and severe or intractable, Parkinson’s disease, positive status for HIV, post-traumatic stress disorder, sickle cell anemia, spinal cord disease or injury, Tourette’s syndrome, traumatic brain injury and ulcerative colitis.







