A medical marijuana dispensary is expanding in Lynchburg.

The first medical marijuana dispensary in the Roanoke valley held a ribbon-cutting Wednesday.

RICHMOND, Va. – Two medical cannabis companies serving Virginia have agreed to merge. New York-based Columbia Care Inc. plans to acquire Maryland-based Green Leaf Medical LLC for $240 million, the companies announced Tuesday. “No organization in the industry will be better positioned to serve patients and customers in the mid-Atlantic than Columbia Care,” Columbia Care CEO Nicholas Vita in a news release. Green Leaf secured approval in 2018 from the Virginia Board of Pharmacy to be the lone medical cannabis licensee for an area that includes the Richmond region and parts of Southside Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. Columbia will pay $240 million, consisting of a cash payment of $45 million with the balance of $195 million in Columbia Care stock, according to the newspaper.

While we may not know if President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden won the presidential election for a while longer, there was one clear “winner” on election night, and that was recreational drugs. States across the country have been legalizing recreational marijuana every election cycle, and 2020 was no different. Residents in New Jersey, Arizona, Montana and South Dakota all voted to legalize recreational cannabis, and South Dakota also legalized medical marijuana, along with Mississippi. South Dakota became the first state to legalize medical and recreational marijuana in the same election. For the first time in U.S. history, the state of Oregon decriminalized possession of hard drugs, as well as voted to legalize psychedelic mushrooms.