The Ohio Department of Commerce announced Friday that medical marijuana growers can start applying for Ohio licenses as early as June.

The application and the license both come at a hefty price — but a Boardman native believes it’s a business venture worth exploring.

Brian Kessler lives in Los Angeles, but is from Boardman.

His company, SBL Venture Capital, invests in marijuana and has been advocating to bring medical marijuana to Ohio for years.

“I’m very excited,” Kessler said. “The fact is that we’re now moving down the path. They chose the process where they’re looking for 12 small growers and 12 large growers.”

Kessler said the medical marijuana market is extremely competitive.

He wants Youngstown to have a stake in the business.

“The larger grows are going to dominate the market,” he said. “I’ve seen this in every other state and we want one of those large grows.”

There are a lot of job opportunities, too.

“Usually 50-100 people just at the grow itself — let alone the processing jobs [and] the distribution jobs,” Kessler said. “I mean, it can be thousands of jobs that benefit from this.”

Here are the costs for planting pot in Ohio: A large grow application costs $20,000, while a license is $180,000.

Even so, Kessler believes it’s worth the money.

“I want serious players involved with this project,” he said. “It does take capital to do these businesses”

The next step is bringing medical pot to Youngstown. Kessler says he can do it — with the right group of people.

“I’m advocating very strongly to try and have a very tight group and go down with one focal point so that we’re well represented,” he said.