Four medical marijuana dispensaries have been approved to open in Butler County by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

The approved locations include two in Cranberry Township, one in the city of Butler and one in Jackson Township.

“This has been a highly competitive process and the department received hundreds of quality applications,” John Collins, director of the Office of Medical Marijuana, said in a news release Thursday. “Once this program is fully operational, patients with serious medical conditions will have locations throughout the commonwealth where they can purchase medication to help in their treatment. We remain on track to provide medication to patients in 2018.”

The dispensaries have six months to become operational and must receive conditional use approval from the local municipalities.

Cresco Yeltrah was approved for Butler County Dispensary Facility, which would be located at 201 Pillow St. in the city.

Cresco Yeltrah is the same company that had applied for a grower-processor permit for a facility that is under construction in the Pullman Center Business Park on Hollywood Drive. The company did get a grower-processor permit for a facility in Brookville, Jefferson County.

Keystone Relief Centers of Pittsburgh received a license that included approval for one location in the city’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood and one in the Jackson’s Pointe Development in Jackson Township.

Keystone Integrated Care LLC of Greensburg, Westmoreland County, received a license for three locations including one in Greensburg, one in Pittsburgh and one at 21181 Route 19, Cranberry Township.

The Healing Center LLC of Washington, Pa., received a license for three locations, one in Washington, one in Monroeville, Allegheny County, and one at 270 Executive Drive, Cranberry Township.

The Cranberry Township supervisors approved a zoning ordinance amendment late last year that added medical marijuana to both its agricultural definitions and its zoning for businesses. The township will allow a dispensary in any zoning district where a pharmacy would be allowed, though a conditional use application would have to be reviewed by the planning commission and approved by a vote of the supervisors.

The department of health granted 27 dispensary permits across the state out of 280 applications. Each permitted business has the option to open up to three locations. Including some second and third locations, there were 52 approved locations in the state.

Five permits, for 11 total locations, were approved in Region 5, which includes 11 counties in the southwestern part of the state. In addition to four in Butler County, there were four locations approved for Allegheny County, one in Washington County, one in Fayette County and one in Westmoreland County.

Act 16 of 2016, the state legislation allowing medical marijuana, requires that dispensaries be stand-alone buildings and prohibits them from being built within 1,000 feet of any school or day care center.

The law allows it to be sold in the forms of pills, oil, topicals, vaporizer, nebulizer, tincture and liquid.