Trulieve Cannabis Corp. plans to open the first medical marijuana dispensary in Georgia on Friday.
The dispensary will hold a grand opening in Macon at 9:30 a.m. ET with a ribbon cutting, food trucks and merchandise giveaway, the Tallahassee, Florida-based multistate operator announced in a Thursday news release.
Normal business hours will be 10 a.m.-7 p.m. seven days a week.
The announcement about the Macon opening comes only a day after Georgia regulators issued the state’s first five MMJ dispensary licenses to Trulieve and Botanical Sciences, the market’s primary MMJ producers.
Botanical Sciences and Trulieve are permitted to open six dispensaries each.
Trulieve plans to open three more dispensaries in Georgia this year at locations in Columbus, Newnan and Pooler.
The two companies were issued Class 1 production licenses last September, allowing them to operate up to 100,000 square feet of indoor growing space.
Under MMJ program rules approved in January, Georgia will eventually license up to six companies to manufacture and sell low-THC oil.
Under Georgia law, qualified patients can legally possess up to 20 fluid ounces of “low THC oil,” not exceeding 5 milligrams of THC.
Flower, edibles and vape cartridges are banned in Georgia’s MMJ program.
Dispensaries must pass a pre-operational inspection by the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission and be operational within 120 days of license approval, a much shorter time frame than other states, including Arizona and New York.
Those two states have given social equity retail licensees at least a year to open brick-and-mortar locations. (Full Story)