Center City Medical Marijuana Dispensary Gets Green Light
The road to getting medical marijuana in the hands of patients who need it has been a long one for Pennsylvania. Marijuana use for chronic illness was approved by voters back in 2016, but building an infrastructure through which the substance could be distributed has been challenging. Under the law, patients with 17 approved illnesses – which include autism, cancer, and PTSD – can access medical marijuana.
Medical marijuana has been legal in Pennsylvania since 2016, but Center City will get its first dispensary this fall, two years later.
Now, in a major and exciting step, an approved dispensary has received the OK to set up shop in Center City. Beyond/Hello, the company behind the dispensary, says that it has a location picked out: 1206 Sansom Street, and that it plans to open for business this fall. Blythe Huestis, president of Beyond/Hello, said that the company is looking forward to working with patients in Center City and surrounding areas: “We are here as a trusted resource for the community. Whether patients have questions about medical cannabis, how medical cannabis works with the body, or a product — we will be here to help meet their needs.”
A major investor behind Beyond/Hello is Denver-based Franklin BioScience, which, a couple of months ago, forged a partnership with the Rothman Institute (the Philadelphia metro area’s biggest orthopedic medical group) to investigate the usage of medical marijuana to treat chronic pain.
The Center City dispensary will stock “a wide array of medical cannabis products, including concentrates, cannabis-infused oils, pills, capsules, tinctures, topicals, and a host of other ancillary products such as cartridges and vaporizer pens,” according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. A pharmacist will be on site to assist patients.
“Legalizing cannabis is the right thing to do for our city and the commonwealth,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, commented in a statement to the press. “The opening of medical cannabis dispensaries in Philadelphia will make critical treatments more accessible to patients in need. The program is also creating attractive jobs and the resulting tax revenue will fund important programs that improve our city and commonwealth.”
