SCRANTON — A party for the city’s newest medical cannabis dispensary got high Thursday — like, really high.
To mark the Green Goods dispensary’s grand opening at 1146 S. Main Ave., a pilot flew a banner declaring “Marijuana is Medicine” back and forth from Scranton to its Bethlehem dispensary.
The Scranton dispensary opened about three weeks ago, but formally welcomed patients to meet grower/processors who sell their products there, including products grown and processed in Scranton and White Haven.
A focus on science sets apart Green Goods and its affiliate medical cannabis producer, Pennsylvania Medical Solutions, which has a grower/processor facility in Scranton near East Market Street, said Dr. Kyle Kingsley. He’s founder and chief executive of Green Goods parent company, Minnesota-based Vireo Health.
“We’re a physician-led slew of scientists,” he said. “We believe that people want precision. They want exacting products that are the same every time with defined outcomes.”
Green Goods’ grand opening comes on the heels of a milestone in the way the federal government sees the plant-based drug.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act. Most significantly, the bill proposes to decriminalize cannabis and remove its crippling Schedule I designation, which it currently shares with hard drugs like heroin and ecstasy.
State lawmakers made cannabis legal to treat some medical conditions and illnesses and created its medical marijuana program in 2016.
The federal bill would go far beyond Pennsylvania’s rules, including provisions for at-home growing, which could conceivably rattle medical companies that have spent millions on facilities, dispensaries and meeting strict state quality regulations.
But that’s not the case, said Vireo’s medical education director Dr. Paloma Lehfeldt. Vireo supports home-grow legislation, she said.
“There’s always going to be a need for that doctor/patient relationship,” she said. Patients who use cannabis to treat chronic disease symptoms know what strains work best for them and need the consistency that regulated, medical companies promise.
Scranton is Green Goods’ second location. The company has another in Bethlehem and a third planned for Stroudsburg to open in the next few months.
“We hope that the Green Goods dispensaries will be the best-in-class patient experience for medical cannabis dispensaries in Pennsylvania,” Kingsley said.
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