The Virginia Cannabis Control Authority has unanimously approved a medical marijuana provider for the Shenandoah Valley and much of central Virginia. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
AYR Virginia –spelled A-Y-R – a subsidiary of the national company AYR Wellness, was awarded a conditional license on Thursday to become the medical cannabis provider for a broad swath of the state that has gone without one. Health Service Area 1 encompasses Winchester down to Fredericksburg and all the way to the West Virginia line. It's the only region in Virginia that does not currently have medical cannabis dispensaries, because the first company that was chosen by the Board of Pharmacy had its license revoked in 2020. That decision got tied up in court until last year.
JEREMY PREISS: Medical cannabis patients in HSA 1 have been without a pharmaceutical processor in their region since the inception of Virginia's medical cannabis program.
Jeremy Preiss is the acting head of the authority, which was given oversight of the medical cannabis program at the beginning of this year. He presented the staff's recommendation to a quorum of four authority board members on Thursday morning.
PREISS: And today the board has the opportunity to take another step forward in approving access to medical cannabis for patients in HSA 1.
Preiss said 41 applications were submitted for the license, with 33 of them tying with the highest score. Authority staff rated applicants from zero to two in eight categories, including likelihood of success, cannabis cultivation, and quality control. The winner was chosen from the 33 finalists by a random lottery, pending a background check on the company's owners.
AYR Wellness currently operates dispensaries in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The authority did not announce a timeline for when their dispensaries might open in Virginia.
