In six months, New Yorkers suffering with life-threatening medical conditions, will be able to walk into dispensaries and buy non-smokeable versions of medical marijuana. Only five companies will be licensed by the state to grow and sell medical marijuana. Each company selected will be allowed to open up four dispensaries. Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - In six months, New Yorkers suffering with life-threatening medical conditions, will be able to walk into dispensaries and buy non-smokeable versions of medical marijuana.

Only five companies will be licensed by the state to grow and sell medical marijuana. Each company selected will be allowed to open up four dispensaries.

43 companies are vying for a spot.

Under New York’s recently enacted of the Compassionate Care Act, five organizations shall be licensed to each operate four medical marijuana dispensaries in different counties and to grow their own product to be used for extraction of the active ingredients to be dispensed to qualified patients holding state issued identification cards and their care givers, for the treatment of designated illnesses.

In the past New York had one of the most aggressive policy regarding the use of drugs such as marijuana, but due to the immense pressure and demand of the local populace the authorities have heard the plea of thousands of suffering patients in the state and relaxed the laws over the medical use of marijuana.

A Syracuse-based company is looking to turn the vacant Giant Food Mart building in Johnson City into a cultivation center for medical marijuana.

A Syracuse-based company hopes to turn a former Johnson City supermarket warehouse into a cultivation center for medical marijuana, bringing up to 200 jobs to the area.

Salus Scientific was one of 43 businesses to submit bids for one of five licenses to manufacture and dispense medical marijuana after the state passed a bill last summer authorizing limited access to non-smokeable forms of the drug.

New York is expected to announce the winning bids as early as next week.

A Wayne County company is among 46 aiming at opening production and distribution facilities across the region. Bill Carey says the people behind the plans say they could change the face of medicine.

No exact date and times have been set, but a series of decisions by state health officials are expected by months' end on where companies will be allowed to set up to grow, develop and sell medical marijuana. 

Various groups have been pressing for the development of the drug. This year, the support finally crystallized behind a plan.

"The medical marijuana law, as enacted in New York state, and signed by Governor Cuomo, is highly restrictive compared to laws in other parts of our nation," said Mark Doherty, CEO of Butler Evergreen.  

ALBANY — One of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's top liaisons in New York's Jewish community is quietly pushing for a lucrative license to dispense medical marijuana, and recently expressed confidence to a competitor that he will win one from state government in the coming days, email records show.

As the high-stakes competition to win one of five coveted licenses to run a medical marijuana operation in New York gets down to the wire, an organization that proposes to grow and extract the drug in Glenville shared news on Tuesday that appeared designed to raise its local profile.

Fiorello Pharmaceuticals announced that, if selected as a medical marijuana operator, it would distribute $5 million in research grants statewide, including $1 million to Capital Region scientists, over five years. Research on marijuana's effects has been scant, in part due to federal restrictions.

Last year, whenever women asked Jazmin Hupp about starting a medical-marijuana business in New York, she responded with a question: “Do you have a million dollars?” Hupp is the founder of Women Grow, a professional network for women with marijuana businesses, and she's used to helping others get their start in a male-dominated industry. New York, however, was especially daunting. The state was licensing only five companies to participate in its medical-marijuana program, and each would be required to grow its own marijuana, process the flowers into a pill or oil at a manufacturing plant, and then sell the final product at four dispensaries around the state. The costs of vertical integration are enormous, and it is historically more difficult for women to raise capital than men.

A pharmaceutical company competing for one of the state's five medical marijuana licenses on Monday pledged to provide $5 million in grants to researchers statewide including $1 million to Stony Brook University.

Fiorello Pharmaceuticals Inc. based in New York announced Monday that it will provide the grants for research into medical marijuana uses if it secures one of five state licenses to provide medical marijuana.

MARKHAM, Ont. – From the outside, MedReleaf’s production facility in Markham, Ont., doesn’t look like much. It’s a large rectangular building about three stories tall, shorter but wider than a football field, and camouflaged by an unassuming white exterior with few windows. There are no signs or company logos to tempt inquiring minds or mischief-minded passers-by.

That’s partly by design, CEO Neil Closner said.

“We’re very low-key,” he said. “We don’t want people knowing who we are, what we do, where we do it.

“The product we have inside the building is quite valuable.”

The product: Medical marijuana.