Iowa City’s medical marijuana dispensary on Highway 1 will open by Oct. 1

IOWA CITY — Iowa City’s new medical marijuana dispensary will open by Oct. 1 on Highway 1, in a strip mall between Harbor Freight and La Regia Taqueria.

The Iowa Department of Public Health on Wednesday announced the locations of two new dispensaries. Iowa Cannabis Co. East will be at 382 Highway 1 W in Iowa City and Iowa Cannabis Co. West will be at 3615 Ninth Ave. in Council Bluffs.

Both dispensaries are scheduled to open “on or about Oct. 1,” according to the state public health department, which licenses Iowa’s five dispensaries. The others are in Sioux City, Windsor Heights and Waterloo.

MedPharm Iowa runs the Sioux City and Windsor Heights dispensaries, while Iowa Cannabis Co. operates the Waterloo location.

The state also has granted the Iowa Cannabis Co. a license to manufacture medical marijuana products in Iowa City. The manufacturing site under consideration is in an industrial zone on the south end of Scott Boulevard on Iowa City’s southeast side, officials said.

Iowa Cannabis is connected with Cannabis & Glass, a large recreational marijuana store in Spokane, Wash. Owner Aaron Boshart told The Gazette in December 2019 that profits from the Washington state stores help support Iowa operations.

More than 6,000 Iowans have qualified to be in the medical marijuana program, which addresses a dozen conditions including Parkinson’s disease, cancer and autism.

Patients who have a qualifying condition, as certified by a health care provider, may get a registration card to buy products from Iowa dispensaries. In Iowa, medical cannabis is sold in forms including vaporization, oral, topical, nebulized inhaled forms and suppositories.

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