Patrick WilliamsAkron Beacon Journal
At all of The Botanist’s five Ohio cannabis stores, including the one on Summit Street in Akron, the business plans to play music, serve coffee and refreshments and give away merchandised T-shirts to patrons waiting in line for recreational marijuana.
The company will hold the events when it starts recreational sales — possibly as early as this month.
“The intent is to have … a place where it feels like people are a part of history,” said Kate Ols, executive vice president of the Midwest and New England regions for Acreage Holdings, The Botanist’s parent company.
Northeast Ohioans have been anxiously awaiting the launch of recreational sales, and Ols said she expects it to come soon.
She and other cannabis business executives have been busy preparing.
“If the state says the go-live date is a specific day in the end of June, then I think you'll see as many operators as possible ready to open on that day,” Ols said. “And our expectation is to open all five stores on the same day.”
Existing medical cannabis operators can apply with Ohio's Division of Cannabis Control for dual medical-recreational licenses starting Friday. And recreational, or adult-use, sales could begin soon thereafter.
Division spokesman Jamie Crawford said through email that “there will be no one singular day when sales begin” and that different dispensaries will open at different times. Explaining the staggered rollout, he cited the need for businesses to meet new requirements for point-of-sale software, inventory accounting and employee badging.
Crawford declined to comment on when the earliest adult-use sales could begin but said the businesses that are best prepared will have a “much quicker turnaround.”
Ols said her team expects it to take anywhere from a few days to weeks between the time they send in their application and when they can start adult-use sales.
“But every indication we've received is that adult-use sales will be live in June,” Ols said. “It’ll probably be mid- to -late June.”
When current medical operators become dual-use licensees, they will continue operating under the medical program’s rules and regulations for a time, Crawford said.
The Division of Cannabis Control has drafted and is drafting various proposed adult-use rules that Crawford said need to be reviewed by state agencies. New adult-use rules will go into effect by Sept. 7, "barring any issues or unforeseen circ*mstances," he said.
Some companies, such as Acreage, operate in multiple segments of Ohio’s cannabis supply chain — cultivating the plants, processing concentrated plant-based products such as oils for vaporization and ingestible and topical products, and serving medical patients at retail.
Another cannabis business that operates like this is Curaleaf, which has a dispensary on Buchholzer Boulevard in Cuyahoga Falls and another in Newark that the business is getting ready for the recreational era.
“My team is fully equipped. We've been following all the legislative announcements. We've got all the documentation needed,” said Paul Chialdikas, Curaleaf’s senior vice president and central regional leader.
Both Curaleaf and The Botanist also operate in other states. But because federal law prohibits state-licensed cannabis businesses from transporting plant-based product across state lines, they need to go through separate licensing processes and set up separate supply chains in each state in which they're located.
In other words, they’ve done this before.
How Ohio cannabis businesses are preparing for recreational marijuana sales
Curaleaf plans to add adult-use sales at both of its Ohio medical dispensaries, Chialdikas said.
About two months ago, Curaleaf doubled its cultivation in Johnstown by switching from one tier to two in a roughly 25,000-square-foot area, Chialdikas said.
“It has the capacity to service a lot of people,” Chialdikas said.
Ohio has a tiered medical cannabis system based on square footage, which translates to a 25,000-square-foot cap for “Level 1” cultivators like Curaleaf and Acreage.
But in preparation of recreational sales, for the past roughly three months, Curaleaf’s real estate team and a consultant group have been narrowing down possible sites for about 10 more dispensaries in the state, Chialdikas said.
Acreage Holdings plans to add adult-use sales at all five of its The Botanist dispensaries in Ohio — in Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Wickliffe and Columbus, Ols said.
Acreage has met its 25,000-square-foot cultivation allowance in Middlefield, where it also does processing, Ols said.
Acreage's Ohio-grown cannabis in the “flowering” stage — following the “vegetative” stage — is sun-grown in a greenhouse in Middlefield, Ols said. Cannabis “flower,” also colloquially known as bud or simply weed, has more THC than other parts of the plant and is generally what ends up being sold.
But Ols said plants can be stacked vertically in the preceding vegetative stage.
“Our vegetative space is in a racked vertical grow, and that’s because your vegetative plants are much smaller, they're much easier to handle, but then they move out into the greenhouse when they get flipped to the flower stage,” she said.
The Acreage team is waiting to see if they will need to expand cultivation after recreational sales begin, Ols said. She cited the state’s medical market experiencing “somewhat of an oversupply” over the past two years, as well as her team’s experience needing to match supply with demand in other state markets.
“I do think if there's pressure on the existing supply, that'll be short term,” Ols said. “So, we probably will see some more limited menus, let's say two weeks into adult-use sales, just because there's so much excitement. But a lot of that tapers off. Your first two or three months are when you see the spike.”
Pre-rolls, high concentrated cannabis products won't initially be sold
Company representatives said Curaleaf and Acreage do not currently plan to change the products they produce in anticipation of adult-use sales.
Curaleaf is looking at eventually making changes but is awaiting guidance from regulators, Chialdikas said.
Ols pointed out that sales of pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes, also known as pre-rolls, will eventually become a reality in Ohio, as they are in many other states. Pre-rolls are not in Ohio’s medical program, and combustion of cannabis products — meaning burning them — is not permitted in lieu of using a vaporizer.
Concentrated cannabis products, such as hash, shatter and wax, will also eventually have a higher THC cap, Ols said; the cap is currently 70% in the medical program but is 90% under the recreational legalization statute.
Sales of pre-rolls and higher-THC concentrates will occur if there are no changes to relevant sections of the initiated statute that went into effect in December, a month after voters passed Issue 2 to legalize recreational cannabis. The Ohio General Assembly can change the law at any time, and various bills have been introduced in the legislature.
Crawford said that until DCC adopts updated rules for adult use, its medical rules will remain in effect regarding the sale of “combustible cannabis products,” such as pre-rolls, to recreational consumers.
“However, once new rules are adopted regarding forms and methods for non-medical cannabis, those will be in line with what is permitted by the statute, including combustible cannabis products to be sold to non-medical consumers,” he said.
Curaleaf’s retail stores, The Botanist and many other dispensaries in the state sell products that are grown and created not only inside their ownership groups but also outside of them.
For example, a recent search on The Botanist’s Akron store’s menu shows products from Klutch Cannabis, a Rubber City-based cannabis business with its own cultivation, processing and retail operations. And a search on Curaleaf’s Cuyahoga Falls store’s menu shows product from Galenas, an Akron-based cultivator, and Wellspring Fields, a Ravenna-based cultivator and processor.
When the recreational market kicks off, The Botanist’s menu will stay the same as it has been in the medical program, Ols said.
“Your big three categories are flower, vape cartridges and edibles, and particularly gummies,” she said. “So, the menu is really suited towards that.”
Ohio marijuana businesses finding ways to prioritize medical patients
To continue to serve medical cannabis patients as adult-use sales begin, The Botanist tentatively plans to expand its hours and hire more dispensary employees for its five Ohio locations, Ols said.
The stores’ hours are currently 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, and Ols said her team expects to expand them to 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., “dependent on the state's approval of our medical preservation plan, as well as staffing.”
“And then we’ll have some dedicated medical-only hours in that,” she said. “Those have not been defined yet. We've gone kind of back and forth, and there may be some days of the week that we have larger windows than others just depending … on the traffic.”
When recreational sales start, Chialdikas said, “usually, it’s crazy at the very beginning.”
Curaleaf’s Ohio stores may either open separate lines for medical and adult-use customers or expand hours, Chialdikas said. Curaleaf’s Cuyahoga Falls location is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, according to the business’s website.
Drawing from experience launching recreational sales in Illinois in 2020, when he worked with another cannabis business, Chialdikas said: “We had to service the medical customer first, and then whatever was left over was to adult use. And then you try to create some rhythm.”
Ohio cannabis businesses plan to hire more workers ahead of adult-use sales
Acreage has started to interview candidates for new positions and plans to tentatively start making offers about a week into June, Ols said.
“Retail is largely the bulk of the need, especially for those expanded hours, and also to be running on all cylinders at all times,” she said.
At Curaleaf, about 60 employees work in Johnstown in cultivation and processing, Chialdikas said.
“And we're going to be increasing headcount steadily to keep up with the demand,” he said.
Likely no immediate effect from federal government’s planned marijuana reclassification
The Biden administration plans to reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III.
Chialdikas said he does not anticipate rescheduling greatly affecting business operations but said he sees the potential of expanded access to research as a benefit.
He entered the cannabis industry in 2015 to help a friend start a business. But around that same time, his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. He said she sought pain relief from chemotherapy and radiation and found “instantaneous” relief with cannabis.
Now, she’s cancer-free, Chialdikas said, adding that “she’s not deviated away” from cannabis.
Patrick Williams covers growth and development for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at pwilliams@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @pwilliamsOH.
