COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Department of Commerce on Thursday defended how it awarded a limited number of highly sought-after medical marijuana grow licenses but also announced plans to hire an independent, third-party investigator to handle allegations of errors and wrongdoing.
Last week, state officials called on the department to freeze awarding licenses after reports that one scoring consultant had a felony drug conviction and another had ties to one of the license winners. On Wednesday, one losing applicant sued the state for awarding licenses to lower-scoring companies because they were owned by minorities.
The department plans to move ahead but will engage a third-party investigator, per the suggestion of Attorney General Mike DeWine.
Commerce Director Jacqueline Williams said the department’s scoring process took several steps to make sure no one person had an outsize ability to affect the outcome.
“We are certain this was a fair, balanced and objective process and we’re going to move forward to ensure we continue to meet the mandates established by the legislature,” Williams told the Ohio Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee on Thursday.
Williams and program Chief Operating Officer Justin Hunt explained to the board details about the department’s scoring process to try to put to bed criticism, largely coming from applicants who did not receive one of 24 available cultivation licenses.
What did department officials say?
Trevor C. Bozeman, owner of iCann Consulting, pleaded guilty in 2005 to a felony of possessing marijuana with intent to sell. He paid all fines and completed his sentence of three years of probation.
The same offense would have disqualified a cultivator license applicant. Williams said the department typically doesn’t do background checks on state vendors and didn’t for Bozeman. Williams said Bozeman had “significant subject-matter expertise.”
A second consultant hired to help score, Arizona-based Meade & Wing, had business ties to cultivator license winner Harvest Grows, LLC, cleveland.com reported Tuesday. Keoki Wing, the firm’s chief financial officer, worked for businesses owned by officers of the Arizona-based company as late as last year. And Meade & Wing provided assistance to one of those businesses, according to its application for the consulting work.
Hunt said the scoring consultants were told to notify the department if they had conflicts of interest with an applicant. One of the three consulting firms chosen by the department, Illinois-based B&B Grow Solutions, disclosed a conflict with a potential applicant and was removed from the process.
Hunt said no other conflicts of interest were disclosed to the department and reiterated the process shielded reviewers from the identities of the applicants.
How were applications scored?
The department used 25 reviewers including state employees and three individual consultants hired for their expertise in medical marijuana.
Some reviewers only reviewed the first part of the application, which contained the names and tax information of the company’s owners and information about the proposed cultivation site.
The second part of the application was not supposed to contain identifiable information such as names of owners, businesses or even states where the company did business. If an application had more than five references to such information, it was disqualified.
A team of three reviewers, each including at least one state employee, scored a portion of every applications, such as the security plan or operations plan. Hunt said consultants were limited to parts of the application that involved growing marijuana or other areas where the state employees lacked knowledge.
Reviewers were able to view applications remotely through a secure online portal. Hunt said reviewers were instructed to review only the information provided on the proposed plan and not conduct outside research.
Then, each team decided over a conference call what score to give each application using a scorecard developed with input from the consultants.
About 71 percent of the 185 applications to grow medical marijuana were disqualified for not meeting minimum scores on individual sections, for failing to redact identifiable information or for failing a background check.
How is the department handling concerns?
Hunt said applicants can take concerns about their applications to an administrative hearing. Other concerns about the scoring process will be handled by a yet-to-be-hired independent investigator.
Hunt said information about how to report a concern or allegation will be posted to the program website when available.
“The department will maintain authority to make final decisions with regard to the results of any findings of that third party,” Hunt said.
Advisory board member Shelby County Sheriff John Lenhart asked if there are any more “surprises or lingering issues” that might surface about the program.
Williams said the department is not aware of any.
“We went through excruciating means to ensure there was separate deliberation of each section of this, and we took this process with extreme care and diligence,” Williams said.
credit:cleveland.com
