Ohio’s medical marijuana program can’t seem to get out of its own way.
The program continues to experience delays even after dodging two lawsuits that threatened to hold up progress.
On Tuesday, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy announced it had canceled a special meeting Wednesday at which it was expected to announce the winners of provisional licenses to operate medical marijuana dispensaries.
The Pharmacy Board will award licenses for up to 57 dispensaries throughout the state as part of the rollout of the medical marijuana program, which has a Sept. 8 statutory deadline to be fully operational.
The Pharmacy Board now plans to announce the provisional licenses in early June.
Wednesday’s meeting was canceled because of unexpected delays in validating that all applicants met minimum licensing requirements, according to Cameron McNamee, spokesman for the Pharmacy Board.
“We tried our best,” McNamee said. “We had an expected timeline when we thought we would get this information confirmed. It just didn’t work out.”
Lawsuits dismissed
The Pharmacy Board’s announcement came just days after two separate lawsuits challenging the state’s process for awarding provisional licenses to medical marijuana growers were denied.
One of the lawsuits filed by unsuccessful applicant, Ohio Releaf, challenged the scoring process used by the Ohio Department of Commerce to award the licenses.
Ohio Releaf sought a preliminary injunction preventing 12 large growers with provisional licenses from becoming fully licensed to operate until it had a chance to appeal its score to the state.
But Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Richard Frye ruled late last week that there was “insufficient evidence produced to justify a halt in further work on permanent licensing.”
Most of a similar lawsuit brought by five other companies who failed to secure growers’ licenses was also dismissed last week by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kim Brown.
The commerce department – one of three state agencies overseeing Ohio’s medical marijuana program – awarded 24 provisional cultivator licenses last year. Twelve went to large growers with up to 25,000 square feet of grow space, and 12 were for small growers with up to 3,000 square feet.
The commerce department also awarded a 25th growing license last week after admitting it made an administrative error in scoring some applications.
Losing applicants can still appeal their scores.
But the medical marijuana program won’t be put on hold until the appeals hearings are completed.
Even if everything goes smoothly, regulators will still be hard pressed to get the program up and running by the Sept. 8 deadline.
Besides the growers, no other marijuana businesses essential to the program have been licensed, as required under the law.
That includes licenses for the dispensaries, where medical marijuana will be sold; up to 40 provisional licenses expected to be awarded to companies that will process marijuana into edibles and other permissible forms; and licenses for the labs that will test medical marijuana.
Dozens of doctors in Ohio have received certificates to recommend medical marijuana to their patients to treat nearly two dozen conditions allowed under the law.
But the Pharmacy Board has yet to set up a registry for patients, who must register to receive a patient card necessary to buy medical marijuana.
Credit: cincinnati.com
