Vermont regulators have awarded the state’s fifth medical cannabis dispensary license to PhytoScience Institute, LLC., who will open shops in Bennington and St. Albans. The firm was one of five applicants to apply for the license.
Under the Department of Public Safety rules, PhytoScience must obtain an operating registration certificate and begin dispensing cannabis products to registered patients within six months. The fifth license is part of Act 65, which increased the number of licenses available in the state by two; however, the sixth license will not be granted until patient counts reach 7,000. As of Aug. 24, there were 4,609 patients enrolled in the program. Act 65 also permits current operators to open a second location. Once PhytoScience’s dispensaries are online, there will be 10 dispensaries operating in the state.
In an interview with Heady Vermont, Dr. William Cats-Beril, CEO of PhytoScience, indicated the company plans “to work closely with existing dispensaries.”
“We’re committed to well-being, to helping patients, to developing products that have a therapeutic impact on the life of patients and we identified areas that we thought were underserved,” he said in the exclusive interview. “… We hope to serve large swaths of patient populations – they’ve had poor access, long drives, and we hope that we’ll make it much more convenient to what we think is the best product in the state.”
According to a VT Digger report, two other hopefuls had their applications rejected by DPS who claimed they were incomplete.