Ohio medical marijuana rules revised

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- Rules have been revised for the Ohio medical marijuana program.

The revised rules will not allow home delivery, home-growing or smoking of medical marijuana. It will, however, permit more dispensaries in the state.

Steve Carrel, CEO of Muskingum Behavioral Health, said the precautions are necessary.

“They’re taking a lot of care to make sure that what comes out is not going to be abused, to reduce the chances of abuse, and at the same time meet what was voted on and that is medical marijuana being available to people with certain conditions,” said Carrel.

Instead of the 40 dispensaries that were originally proposed the updated rules released by the state pharmacy board will allow for at least 60 marijuana dispensaries.

Carrel said that a part of the revenue from the medical marijuana sales in the state will go to research to identify the chemicals that impact health.

“If there are chemicals within the marijuana plant that do have medicinal values, let’s figure out what those are, what are those chemicals, for what conditions and lets get it to market to help those people,” he said.

The program is slated to debut in 2018. Proposed rules for the remaining aspects of the program, such as patients, physicians and marijuana processors are still under review.