DAYTON, Ky. — In the year since Kentucky legalized medical cannabis, the commonwealth has seen a slow and steady rollout of the statewide program — but Northern Kentucky is still waiting on its first dispensary to open.

Four Northern Kentucky businesses received dispensary operating licenses during a state-run lottery drawing in November 2024, before one of the four original licenses was sold, resulting in the following dispensaries slated to open:

• Yellow Flowers, LLC in Erlanger (Kenton County)
• C3 Kentucky, LLC in Wilder (Campbell County)
• Bluegrass Cannacare, LLC in Florence (Boone County)
• Green Grass Cannabis, LLC in Carrollton (Carroll County)

According to Rachel Roberts, a former state lawmaker and current executive director of the Kentucky Cannabis Industry Alliance, of the four, only one, Bluegrass Cannacare, has been “completely approved” by the Kentucky Office of Medical Cannabis to operate.

“I think the other (dispensaries) are still a couple months out, as they’re building out their facilities and working through their zoning issues,” Roberts said. “Not only do facilities need to be built out, but the plant itself needs to grow. So we’re dealing with that.”

Per WCPO 9 news partner WVXU, the operators of C3 Kentucky, LLC told Wilder’s Planning and Zoning Commission in late November 2025 that they plan to begin construction on a new dispensary location along Country Drive in Wilder in early 2026.

WATCH: Northern Kentucky’s first medical cannabis business has opened. The region’s dispensaries will soon follow. Here’s when.

Across 11 Kentucky regions, 48 dispensaries were awarded licenses to operate.

Chad Johns, general manager of Bluegrass Cannacare, said the dispensary’s open date has, for the most part, been tethered to when the limited supply of product grows enough to sustain business.

“Right now, I hope and pray that we get enough (product) to get us through,” Johns said. “Is it enough to keep everybody open until more can come online and keep going? That’s the question.”

Roberts said the limited supply could be why other dispensaries in the region haven’t opened yet — to bide their time.

“Do they open as soon as they possibly can, or do they wait until there’s (a) more robust product array for patients?” Roberts said. “And here in Northern Kentucky, that really plays into it, because we’re right across the river from a recreational state.”

Kentucky’s first medical cannabis dispensary, The Post, opened in December in Beaver Dam, Ky. Johns said by its fourth day of operating, it ran out of products to sell to patients. After a restock this month, it is back open.

“As more cultivators come online and as more dispensaries come online, those issues are going to balance out,” he said.

There are currently four cultivators, or growers, operating in the Commonwealth. Roberts said a fifth has received its commencement inspection and “may have plants in today or as early as next week.”

Johns said Bluegrass Cannacare is eyeing a February opening date.

“(It feels) like we won the lottery — the same as when they announced our name on the state drawing a year ago,” he said. “We literally are Kentuckians who put in one application, and we hit out of 5,000. Those odds are astounding.”

While no dispensaries are open yet, Kentucky’s first operational medical cannabis processor, Bison Processing, opened on Thursday.

It will be responsible for taking Kentucky-grown cannabis and transforming it into safe, lab-tested medical products — such as tinctures, edibles and topicals — for patients registered in the Kentucky Medical Cannabis Program.

More than 17,000 Kentuckians have been approved for medical marijuana cards, Gov. Andy Beshear said on Wednesday. Roberts said, given where the rollout’s momentum is headed, anyone in Northern Kentucky interested in applying for a card should do so now.

“The fact that we, in just over a year, have dispensaries open with product variety available for the patients of Kentucky is lightning fast in the grand scheme of how medical cannabis works,” Roberts said. “I think Team Kentucky deserves a really big round of applause for the way they handled this rollout, the way that they did the regulations.”