Connecticut officials have designated facilities in Branford, Bridgeport, Bristol, Hartford, South Windsor and Uncasville to serve as the state’s first six medical marijuana dispensaries.

The dispensaries are expected to be open sometime this summer, when marijuana grown by state-authorized producers is available, according to the state Department of Consumer Protection, which oversees the program.

“With the selection of dispensary facilities, all necessary pieces of the medical marijuana program are in place and we are poised to provide patients with a safe and secure source of needed medicine,” Consumer Protection Commissioner William Rubenstein said in a statement released Thursday.

Rubenstein called the dispensaries “the public face of Connecticut’s medical marijuana program.”

The facilities chosen to serve as dispensaries are:

Arrow Alternative Care Inc., 92 Weston St., Hartford

Bluepoint Apothecary, LLC, 469 East Main St., Branford

D&B Wellness, LLC, 2181 Main St., Bridgeport

Prime Wellness of Connecticut, LLC, 75 John Fitch Blvd., South Windsor

Thames Valley Apothecary, LLC, 1100 Norwich-New London Turnpike, Uncasville

The Healing Corner Inc., 159 East Main St., Bristol

The six facilities, which were selected from a pool of 27 applicants, must pay a $5,000 license fee and submit documentation to receive their licenses. After that, they can begin any construction that’s needed, hire and train staff, and develop educational programs and materials.

Connecticut law allows patients with one of 11 debilitating illnesses to use marijuana for palliative purposes if their doctors believe it’s appropriate.

Arielle Levin Becker covered health care for The Connecticut Mirror. She previously worked for The Hartford Courant, most recently as its health reporter, and has also covered small towns, courts and education in Connecticut and New Jersey. She was a finalist in 2009 for the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists, a recipient of a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and the third-place winner in 2013 for an in-depth piece on caregivers from the National Association of Health Journalists. She is a 2004 graduate of Yale University.

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