Medical marijuana is now legal in the state of Ohio but patients who need it, can’t get it yet. Those patients might be waiting more than a year because a new committee must map out every detail from the marijuana seed to the plant’s sale.

What does the industry look like? Where is the marijuana grown? Who gets to sell it? and When can patients finally buy it?

These are all questions the group of 14 Ohioans is hoping to answer. From pharmacists and physicians to researchers and drug addiction experts, this team will set the rules.

2 NEWS Investigates traveled to Columbus for their first meeting and tracked down the local members: Shelby County Sheriff John Lenhart and Dayton Pain Management Physician, Dr. Amol Soin.

Tuesday's election notched several wins for marijuana law reformers across the country, including those in four Ohio communities.  

Three states legalized recreational marijuana and the vote was too close to call in a fourth state, according to unofficial election results. Four states legalized medical marijuana.

And four Ohio communities passed local ordinances reducing penalties for marijuana possession to none. 

Marijuana decriminalization measures passed in Newark in Licking County, Bellaire in Belmont County, Logan in Hocking County and Roseville, on the border of Perry and Muskingum counties. A measure in Byesville in Guernsey County failed. 

The panel charged with putting the state’s new medical marijuana law in effect has come up with some rules for sites where marijuana would be grown in Ohio.

The number of proposed growing sites has upset activists who’ve had questions about the new law.  

Limited growing sites and other rules

The Ohio Department of Commerce’s proposals would limit the number of marijuana growing sites to 18. The licenses and fees for the 12 larger sites would be $200,000 each; those for the six smaller sites would be $20,000 each.

'Apparently they want to shut out the Ma and Pa shops.'

A draft of rules released today by the state would limit the number of medical marijuana growers in Ohio to 18 and slap a $20,000 application fee and $180,000 license fee on the top-tier grower positions.

 Life under Ohio's fledgling medical marijuana law remains hazy. With every action, a new question seems to arise.

The state Medical Board has advised doctors not to recommend marijuana to patients while Ohio's program is being crafted, which could take up to two years. But an author of the law questions that advice.

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Ohio’s regulations that will lead to the opening of most medical marijuana businesses are at least a year away, but that hasn’t stopped some local governments from pursuing moratoriums or outright bans on such businesses now.

“Folks are just jumping the gun,” said Aaron Marshall, spokesman for Ohioans for Medical Marijuana. “There’s no reason to cast a moratorium on any type of business. The system being set up is 12 or 18 months away. ... If you look at the places doing this, they are small towns, rural Ohio, more conservative areas that are afraid of the unknown.”

Ohio has yet to outline how exactly its new medical marijuana law will work even as it is set to take effect Thursday, leaving a host of unanswered questions by doctors, patients, pharmacists, police and many others.

Rules for producing, prescribing and distributing cannabis to eligible patients are expected to take up to a year to craft.

Ohio is the 25th state to legalize medical marijuana. Its law was fast-tracked by a Republican-controlled Legislature after it appeared all but inevitable voters would do it if lawmakers didn’t.

The narrow law has an implementation schedule that’s slower than in some other states.

How soon real access comes, remains to be seen. The program isn’t required to be fully operational until September 2018.

Ohio lawyers could represent legitimate medical marijuana clients under a revision to proposed rules of ethical conduct.

The Ohio Supreme Court today announced a proposed amendment to rules related to medical marijuana, which will be legal, but not yet available in Ohio next week. The court eased what seemed to be almost insurmountable obstacles to legal representation proposed by a court advisory group on Aug. 11.

The court proposed added this key provision:

Earlier this year, Ohio Governor and former Republican presidential candidate John Kasich signed a bill into law that authorized state physicians to prescribe medicinal marijuana to patients affected by a number of health conditions. Ohio has already began looking at ways to revolutionize the way money is transacted in the cannabis industry, as the state is looking to implement a “closed-loop” payment system that would make it easier to track payments between patients and business owners.