Medical Marijuana Facility In Manassas Ready To Launch Operations

MANASSAS, VA —BEYOND / HELLO Manassas will be opening a medical marijuana dispensary on Tuesday, the first medical marijuana dispensary in Northern Virginia.

The facility, at 8100 Albertstone Circle in Manassas, will be serving patients in its store and through its website, which will allow medical marijuana patients to view cannabis products, pricing and availability, and reserve treatments for in-store pickup.

After a first-time visit to the Manassas dispensary to consult with a pharmacist, BEYOND / HELLO will also offer home delivery to patients.

At the Manassas facility, the company will grow marijuana indoors and process the plant to extract cannabis oil on site. "We liked Manassas for our medical cannabis operation from the very beginning," Gregory Kennedy, co-owner of Dalitso LLC, the parent company of BEYOND / HELLO, said in an email to Patch.

Dalitso LLC is majority-owned by Jushi Holdings Inc., a cannabis operator with cannabis dispensaries and facilities in Pennsylvania, Illinois, California and Virginia.

"Our location in Prince William County was attractive because of its reasonable commercial rents, its proximity to the George Mason University Science and Technology Campus, and its accessibility to all areas of HSA II from Leesburg to Woodbridge to areas inside the Beltway," Kennedy said.

Virginia is divided into five health service areas for purposes of health care administration. The state selected one pharmaceutical processor to operate in each of the five HSAs. Northern Virginia is referred to as HSA II.

The dispensary will carry medical marijuana vapes, cartridges, concentrates, edibles, topicals, tinctures/sublinguals and suppositories. The store will offer a 10-percent discount to seniors, veterans and active military service people. BEYOND / HELLO has information on how to become a medical marijuana patient in Virginia on its website.

The Manassas facility began planting its first seeds this fall. Starting out, the facility is expected to produce 6,000 pounds of dried flower. The extraction lab and kitchen will also manufacture medically infused cannabis products, including in-house brands from Jushi. At full capacity, the facility is expected to have an annual cultivation output of about 27,000 pounds of dried flower.

Dalitso was one of the five pharmaceutical processors awarded medical cannabis operator permits by Virginia in 2018. The others are Dharma Pharmaceuticals in Bristol, which opened in October, GreenLeaf in Richmond, which opened on Nov. 27, Columbia Care in Portsmouth, which has yet to set a date for its opening, and Pharmacann in Staunton, which lost its permit from the Virginia Board of Pharmacy. The board has issued a new request for applications that will close Friday.

People who live in Northern Virginia (HSA II) will have relatively easy access to the Manassas facility — no more than a 45-minute drive for residents of Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax and Arlington counties as well as the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church and Fairfax. Residents who live outside HSA II will also have short distances to travel to the Manassas location, with Culpeper only a 30-minute drive, Winchester less than an hour drive and Fredericksburg an hour drive.

After opening its flagship cultivation, processing and dispensing facility in Manassas on Tuesday, BEYOND / HELLO will begin to focus on opening up five additional dispensaries in Northern Virginia, Kennedy said. The company hopes to open the five new locations in the next several months.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said he plans to introduce legislation legalizing marijuana when the General Assembly convenes in January, setting the state on a path to become the first in the South to allow recreational use of the drug.

Northam cautioned "it's not going to happen overnight," saying he envisions an 18 to 24 month timetable for the state to establish and regulate the new marketplace.

Before visiting BEYOND / HELLO, patients should obtain written certification from a Virginia Board of Pharmacy registered practitioner. Patients also need to register as a patient with the Board of Pharmacy. Finally, patients must obtain a Virginia Medical Cannabis ID Card.