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Summit County's First Medical Marijuana Dispensary Awaits Inspection

Adam Brezak, manager of the Cuyahoga Falls Herbology location, has worked with the company's branches in Illinois. The company is also opening a dispensary near Columbus.
Kabir Bhatia
/
WKSU
Adam Brezak, manager of the Cuyahoga Falls Herbology location, has worked with the company's branches in Illinois. The company is also opening a dispensary near Columbus.

The first medical marijuana dispensary in Summit County is ready to open, in a storefront near Chapel Hill Mall. Herbology – which has more than a dozen dispensaries in Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland – is awaiting state approval for its location in Cuyahoga Falls to begin supplying the drug to patients.

Julie Haas from Stow was at the Herbology open house on Saturday to get more information. She suffers from pain related to back surgeries.

Haas says the process for opening dispensaries in Ohio has been too drawn-out.

“I think the government in Ohio [is] deliberately making it harder and harder for these places to open,” Haas says. “I hope Ohio gets it a little bit more together.”

As of last Thursday, 13 of Ohio's 56 licensed marijuana dispensaries have received their certificates of operation, including recently-opened Terrasana in Columbus.

An Herbology spokeswoman says it could be several weeks before they are fully open for business and can have product on-site. Another Herbology location is planned for Newark.

Kabir Bhatia joined WKSU as a Reporter/Producer and weekend host in 2010. A graduate of Hudson High School, he received his Bachelor's from Kent State University. While a Kent student, Bhatia served as a WKSU student assistant, working in the newsroom and for production.