Trulieve & the November 12, 2021 First Sale — Morgantown Sabraton

Last verified: May 2026

The First Sale — November 12, 2021

West Virginia’s first legal medical-cannabis transaction occurred on Friday, November 12, 2021 at Trulieve Morgantown, located at 1397 Earl Core Road in the Sabraton neighborhood of Morgantown (Mon County, the WVU university town). The address sits along the Earl Core Road corridor that runs through Sabraton on the eastern side of Morgantown, near I-68. Trulieve’s Sabraton location was followed by Trulieve Weston (Lewis County, north-central WV) on November 15, 2021 — meaning within four days of opening, Trulieve had two operating West Virginia dispensaries.

The November 12, 2021 date is the symbolic launch of the West Virginia medical-cannabis program. The four years between Gov. Jim Justice’s SB 386 signing on April 19, 2017 and that first sale make the WV program implementation gap one of the longest in U.S. medical-cannabis history — reflecting federal-banking refusal that stalled the program in 2018 (resolved by HB 2538, the 2019 Cannabis Banking Act), product-form and vertical-integration fights (SB 1037 in 2019, SB 339 in 2020), slow rulemaking, and the late-2020-to-2021 permit issuance. See four-year-delay page.

Why Morgantown First — Sabraton

Morgantown was the natural launching ground for West Virginia’s first dispensary for several reasons:

• WVU population (~28,000 students plus the WVU Medicine system workforce) produces dense potential patient demand
• Mon County is West Virginia’s most progressive county, with a Democratic-leaning electorate at the state-legislative level
• I-68 / I-79 / U.S. 119 corridor access brings patients from a wide rural catchment
• Sabraton sits just east of the I-68 / I-79 split, making it accessible to commuters and patients across north-central WV
• Mon County abuts Pennsylvania (medical cannabis since 2016), producing a long-existing patient awareness base

Trulieve Cannabis Corp. — Tallahassee Headquarters

Trulieve Cannabis Corp. (NASDAQ: TCNNF; CSE: TRUL) is one of the largest U.S. cannabis multi-state operators by retail count. The company is headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, and was founded by Kim Rivers (CEO since 2017). Trulieve’s Florida medical-cannabis market dominance — with 100+ Florida dispensaries serving the largest U.S. medical-cannabis patient base — produced the operational scale that made Trulieve an early WV-market entrant. The company’s WV-launch capital and operational expertise were drawn directly from Florida-program experience.

The Trulieve WV Footprint

Trulieve holds 9 of the maximum 10 dispensary permits permitted to a single operator under W. Va. Code § 16A. As of spring 2026, Trulieve operates dispensaries across multiple West Virginia regions, supported by its central 100,000-square-foot cultivation and processing facility in Huntington (Cabell County). Trulieve also operates a Huntington dispensary in addition to the cultivation campus. Among the publicly-reported Trulieve WV locations:

• Trulieve Morgantown — 1397 Earl Core Rd, Sabraton (the first; Nov 12, 2021)
• Trulieve Weston (Lewis County) — second to open, Nov 15, 2021
• Trulieve Huntington — Cabell County (anchored by 100,000-sq-ft cultivation/processing facility)
• Multiple additional dispensaries across the state

The Huntington 100,000-sq-ft cultivation footprint is the largest single cannabis-industrial facility in the Mountain State, supplying Trulieve’s dispensary network with WV-grown cannabis under METRC seed-to-sale tracking. Trulieve’s vertical integration (grower + processor + dispensaries) is permitted under SB 1037 (2019). See Huntington / Marshall page.

The Kim Rivers / Florida Model in West Virginia

Trulieve’s WV operating model reflects its Florida-program experience: vertically integrated, large-format cultivation, branded retail. The Sabraton store opening drew significant patient interest in the first weeks — many patients had been waiting since SB 386 signing in 2017 for the program to actually launch. Inventory in the early weeks ran tight, with Trulieve sourcing primarily from its own Huntington cultivation. The Huntington campus’s scale — 100,000 square feet under glass / under climate control — is unusual for a Mountain State industrial facility and reflects Trulieve’s commitment to the WV market.

The Symbolic Significance of the Sabraton Address

The 1397 Earl Core Road address has acquired some significance in West Virginia cannabis history as the literal launch site of the medical-cannabis program. Patients, advocates, and reporters routinely cite the Sabraton location when narrating the four-year SB-386-to-first-sale arc. The address sits in a strip-mall commercial corridor along Earl Core Road near the I-68 / Sabraton interchange — an utterly ordinary commercial setting that contrasts with the political weight of being "first."

The November 15 Weston Opening — Lewis County

Three days after the Sabraton first sale, Trulieve opened its Weston, WV location on November 15, 2021. Weston is the Lewis County seat in north-central West Virginia, on U.S. 33 / I-79. The Weston opening confirmed that Trulieve’s WV launch was multi-location from the start, not a single-store experiment. Lewis County is rural and economically distressed; the Weston dispensary signaled commitment to non-urban WV markets that the OMC permit-issuance process had specifically targeted with geographic distribution requirements.

Trulieve’s Continuing Position in the WV Market

As of spring 2026, Trulieve remains the dispensary count and cultivation scale leader in the West Virginia medical-cannabis market. The company’s 9-of-10 dispensary permits, 100,000-sq-ft Huntington cultivation, and statewide operating network give it the largest single-operator footprint in the Mountain State. Verano Holdings (6 stores, including the January 2, 2026 Charleston opening) is the second-largest by store count among MSOs; Harvest Care / Country Grown (~9 stores) is the largest WV-based vertical operator. See Verano / Zen Leaf page; see Country Grown page.

The Four-Year-Delay Context

The November 12, 2021 first sale arrived more than four years after SB 386 signing on April 19, 2017 — a delay that produced significant political fallout during the 2018–2021 period as patients, families, and advocates publicly criticized the slow OMC rulemaking and permit issuance. SB 386 had contemplated patient access by July 2019. The actual launch slipped 28 months past that target. The drivers (federal-banking refusal, banking-fix legislation, vertical-integration / product-form fights, slow rulemaking, late permit issuance) are now part of the WV program’s institutional memory and a recurring reference point in 2026 reform debates — reform advocates point to the four-year delay as evidence that the Mountain State’s legislative and regulatory cycle on cannabis tends toward over-caution rather than over-speed.