Utah will start accepting purposes Monday for a new unbiased medical hashish pharmacy in a rural or medically underserved space, in keeping with a information launch issued Wednesday by the Utah Division of Agriculture and Meals.
The license is the second of two unbiased pharmacy permits mandated below Home Invoice 54, a 2025 legislation that expanded the variety of medical hashish pharmacies allowed within the state and carved out alternatives for operators not owned by massive hashish firms.
State officers should challenge the license no later than Jan. 1.
What’s required to get a Utah medical marijuana license?
Eligibility comes with limits:
- Candidates can’t maintain a monetary curiosity in an current medical hashish pharmacy or be owned by an entity tied to a hashish manufacturing institution.
- The pharmacy should be in a chosen medically underserved county with a inhabitants lower than 260,000. Greater than two dozen counties meet the standards.
Candidates should submit a facility structure, safety plan, commonplace working procedures for shelling out and stock and personnel {qualifications} for pharmacists and technicians.
Utah has 115,472 energetic medical marijuana sufferers, in keeping with state knowledge.
The first unbiased license below HB54 went to Boojum in Moab, which opened this yr, in keeping with the Utah Information Dispatch. Earlier than Boojum, the closest pharmacy was practically a two-hour drive away in Value.
Boojum beat out a a lot bigger competitor for the license.
“We had been awarded this license over a $2 billion holdings company from Chicago,” Boojum Chief Science Officer Olivia Kulunder informed Moab Solar Information. She didn’t identify the corporate.
Kulunder mentioned the licensing board cited the corporate’s native ties as a deciding issue, the Solar Information reported.
How does Utah examine to different medical-only states?
Utah’s method follows a broader pattern of states including hashish permits tied to particular coverage triggers fairly than open-ended market enlargement.
Florida caps medical marijuana therapy middle (MMTC) licenses by legislation, with the restrict tied to the state’s affected person registry.
As of June, Florida counted 933,183 energetic sufferers, a quantity that has been steadily rising for the reason that state legalized medical marijuana in 2016 with 24 licenses. The state permitted 22 new MMTC licenses in 2024 to maintain tempo with that development.
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Georgia structured its medical hashish market, initially launched in 2023, round a hard and fast ceiling. At the moment, the state limits enterprise licenses to:
- Six cultivation licenses
- 15 retail licenses, six of that are held by Trulieve
- One unbiased hashish testing laboratory
Nonetheless, with each 10,000 new medical marijuana sufferers coming into this system, a further retail license turns into obtainable.
And since new guidelines increasing each merchandise and affected person eligibility went into impact July 1, the variety of sufferers within the state ballooned from 34,000 to greater than 40,000 in only a few weeks.
