BALTIMORE — A lawsuit aimed at diversifying Maryland’s medical marijuana industry has resulted in a temporary, 10-day ban on the issuance of full licenses to grow cannabis.
The ban comes over a week after it was announced that the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission issued its first full growing license to ForwardGro, an Anne Arundel County-based grower. The commission issued pre-approval licenses to 15 growers and 15 processors last August, giving those select groups the go-ahead to begin constructing their facilities.
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams issued the ban on Thursday.
Alternative Medicine Maryland, the plaintiff in the suit, took legal action against the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission on Oct. 31, 2016, with the goal of completely restarting the process of evaluating applications and issuing licenses.
Alternative Medicine Maryland is alleging that the evaluation process and selections yielded a pool of growers that lacked racial diversity. While a third of Maryland’s population is black, just one of the 15 growers is African American-led.
Because of this, the Black Caucus in the Maryland General Assembly has pushed for Gov. Larry Hogan to expand the number of growers to represent a more diverse crowd. He issued an executive order to study the issue of diversity in the burgeoning industry.
According to the commission’s diversity statistics, the industry’s ownership has a 37 percent racial/ethnic diversity participation rate, and a 57 percent minority participation rate, including women. At the employee level, the industry has 58 percent racial/ethnic diversity participation rate and a 75 percent minority participation rate, including women.
However, the evaluation process was blind, meaning that names and personal identifiers were redacted. The evaluation process was based solely on the merits of the applications.
Medical marijuana was legalized four years ago in Maryland, but it’s still not being grown in the state, a source of frustration for those in the industry.
“It is incredibly disappointing that the Circuit Court for Baltimore City ruled to temporarily delay the Medical Cannabis Program in the State of Maryland. Maryland’s patients and families have waited nearly four years for access to these important medicines,” said Jake Van Wingerden, the head of SunMed Growers, a pre-licensed medical cannabis grower in Cecil County. “We are hopeful that the Circuit Court will rule against Alternative Medicine Maryland’s (AMM) frivolous legal filing when all the evidence is heard on June 2.”
Recently, Van Wingerden said he anticipated completing the construction of his more than 70,000-square-foot Warwick acility in July, with growing set to begin in August.
Van Wingerden, who also chairs the Maryland Wholesale Medical Cannabis Trade Association, questioned AMM’s qualifications.
“AMM failed to receive a medical cannabis license in its home state of New York and its application in Maryland did not even make the top 60 list,” he said. “Based on the independent analysis of subject matter experts in New York and Maryland, AMM is simply not qualified to deliver high-quality medical cannabis to patients, and the Circuit Court should not let a failed out-of-state company cause even further delays in Maryland’s Medical Cannabis Program.”
“Their actions now threaten to delay Maryland’s Medical Cannabis Program even further and we call upon AMM to drop its lawsuit and let the sick and hurting residents of Maryland receive the medicine they have been waiting for,” Van Wingerden added.
Link – Cecil Daily
