If all goes according to plan, Poplar Bluff will have its first medical marijuana dispensary open sometime next week.
According to Casey Efting, director of retail operations at Greenlight Dispensary, “We’ve gone through everything we need to go through for the state; they call it going through commencement.
“They come and inspect our building and make sure that we’ve held up everything that we put into our application and that we followed all the guidelines and the laws in order to open, and we are simply waiting for the letter of approval from the state.”The new dispensary is located in the Mansion Mall on Westwood Boulevard, across from the John J. Pershing VA Medical Center. The sales floor is separate from the lobby area, and security is assured through multiple cameras which cover the entire facility, according to store personnel.
Greenlight Dispensary is operating, or in the process of opening, several stores in the Kansas City, St. Louis, Southeast and Southwest Missouri areas, as well as one store in Helens, Arkansas.
Efting is excited about Greenlight’s presence in the area, with stores opening up in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Hayti, Sikeston and Poplar Bluff.
Only about 30 dispensaries have been approved to open in Missouri, of nearly 200 that were granted licenses as of Jan. 22, according to a database maintained by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
Medical marijuana sales to patients started in Missouri in October 2020. Once open, Greenlight will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. To purchase medicinal marijuana, individuals have to have a doctor’s letter of recommendation, at which point they can apply for a medicinal marijuana ID card from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which may take up to 30 days to process.
Efting wants to make sure everyone knows the commitment the company has to its Poplar Bluff location.
“We’re literally an open book for our communities,” he said. We want to be a good steward of our community, and we’re here for the long haul.”
Currently, about 20 states have implemented medical marijuana laws, according to the DHSS, including Arkansas and Illinois.