MORGANTOWN — More than 200 people lined up along the front of Sabraton Plaza Friday morning, waiting their turn to step inside West Virginia’s first medical cannabis dispensary: Trulieve Medical Cannabis Treatment Center.
It was the grand-opening for the first of nine planned Trulieve dispensaries across the state, said Kim Rivers, CEO of the Florida-based company with operations in 11 states. The second dispensary will open Monday in Weston and a third is planned for Charleston soon, she said.
“We are a company that is dedicated to access and putting patients first,” she told the waiting, cheering crowd. The company has two mottos. One is, “Just Say Yes,” meaning “we are here to serve you,” she said.
The other is, “We grow one patient at a time through authentic and reciprocal relationships.” That means, she said, “We hope to be your dispensary of choice” and that each customer will form a relationship with the people behind the counters. “It’s about your personal journey. We’re on a mission to make sure this is a normalized part of our health care routine.”
The Dominion Post spoke with a couple customers waiting in line.
Sabrina Howland, 41, came up from Hurricane, about midway between Charleston and Huntington. She signed up to receive her medical cannabis card back in February and the number shows she was the third registered patient in the state. She received her card a month later but has had to wait until November to be able to buy product.
She developed neuropathy — severe nerve pain — about six years ago, she said, and sometimes finds it hard to walk. She had to quit driving and quit her job.
“I decided to come up here because it’s legal now. It will help me. I need it,” she said.
She’d previously used gabapentin, a prescription nerve pain medication, she said. “Gabapentin is OK, but once you take it three times a day, it makes you go to sleep.” Cannabis seemed like a good option. “I talked to my doctor. She said whenever it becomes legal it would be a great thing. I tried it just to see, and it worked.”
She’s been smoking cannabis for treatment but now will be using a ground version in a vaporizer, she said, and hopes to be able to return to work.
Timothy Heffner, of Morgantown, was in a motorcycle accident some years ago and also suffers from diabetic neuropathy. He was using 60 milligrams of oxycodone to relieve his pain, he said, then turned to a methadone clinic, which was worse.
So he quit everything. He asked his doctor for options, he said, and the doctor suggested medical cannabis. Like so many others, he found ways to obtain it while he waited, and has been smoking it. “Crazy enough, it’s changed everything. My feet don’t hurt as bad.”
It relieved his anxiety. He was able to spend last summer attending concerts and camping with his kids. “It helps me just feel good. … I feel normal.” Before, he couldn’t spend much time with his kids and just sat on the porch a lot. “It wasn’t really much of a life at all. I wouldn’t have been able to be here today with this crowd of people.”
All Trulieve had available on Friday was five strains of flower for vaporization, but Heffner said he hopes to switch to pill form when it’s available. Rivers said their full line will be available next week.
Another patient, the state’s first, was featured during the opening ceremonies. U.S. Army Purple Heart veteran Ron Frye was wounded by a roadside bomb in 2003, spent nine months in a coma, experienced spinal damage and severe PTSD, and is a permanent wheelchair user. He participated in a Department of Defense program, taking THC and found it life-changing, but then was put back on opioids when the study ended.
He was able to get off opioids using CBD, and has been looking forward to accessing medical cannabis again, he said. He told the crowd, “I’m monumentally honored, not only to be the first patient in West Virginia but to represent the thousands of veterans in the state in this first step toward getting them this medication that they so desperately need.
Store manager Jonathan Franklin took a few moments from bustling around inside and out in order to greet the crowd. “My team is so excited to be here,” he said. “We’re so excited to take care of West Virginia and we’re excited to be the first. We want to heal with West Virginia. That is our mindset.”
Rivers said the Morgantown dispensary will initially be open 10 a.m.-6p.m. Thursday-Sunday, with the Weston dispensary open Monday-Tuesday with the same hours, but the hours will be expanded.
The company started five years ago with 10 employees and is now approaching 8,000 she said. Now they have 34 people working at their cultivation and processing center outside Huntington, and 20 in their dispensaries, but expect to employ more than 200 in the coming year.
Trulieve has nine dispensary licenses, she said — the legal maximum is 10 — and they expect to open all nine in the next year. It’s publicly listed, is the nation’s largest single operator, and is on track to reach its 2021 revenue target of $815 million to $850 million.
Don’t expect to just walk into a store where cannabis sits all over open shelves. You enter a large foyer area, then pass through a set of double doors into the actual dispensary, where uniformed staff stand behind glass counters to help you select the right medication.
Rivers said she hopes her company’s standards and protocols will help set the standards across the industry. “This is a big enough industry for a lot of different types of companies.”
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp
EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
