LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – No one has submitted applications to grow and sell medical marijuana in the Natural State ahead of the mid-September deadline.
Several of the groups vying for the state’s 32 dispensaries and five cultivation facilities said they’re waiting until the last minute to make sure they have everything they need.
“When it’s done, it’ll be filed,” said Mary Parker, an attorney for Tennessee-based Global Resource Operations (GRO). “It’s really exciting. I think what Arkansas did is just a fabulous program.”
Parker said GRO brought together a large team of scientists, lawyers, psychologists, doctors and more from California to Colorado to Arkansas to try to open both a cultivation facility and dispensary in Arkansas.
Parker and two of her colleagues traveled from Tennessee to Little Rock Monday to hear from a cannabis application expert on what could make or break their business.
“The fine points are where you’re going to score,” Robert Carp told the 20-person crowd.
This Harvard-trained government scientist has reviewed nearly a thousand medical marijuana applications. He’s even written a how-to book.
Carp said the two biggest mistakes applicants make are forgetting to include a promise to provide “an uninterrupted supply” of cannabis and how to track the product from seed to sale, known as a chain of custody.
“It’s a very difficult business if you don’t have all of these operating procedures down, have them documented and ensure your employees know where to go for help,” Carp said.
In reviewing Arkansas’s application process, Carp worries most about the Medical Marijuana Commission’s inexperience with grading.
“You’re going to have inconsistent results,” he said. “It will be prone to lawsuits because people will say, ‘Well, I had this. You didn’t. How come I didn’t get points, and you did?’ There’s just a lot of loose ends that should be tied up before they actually grade any of these.”
Carp said he will score applications higher if they admit they don’t have all the answers and name resources and experts to fall back on. He encourages applicants to be as specific as possible because the health of their patients is ultimately at risk.
“This is medical cannabis,” Carp said. “The last thing anyone should be doing is making anyone’s medical problems worse because of carelessness in taking care of the product.”
That’s why GRO is trying to make the most out of its 25-page application, in hopes of beating out the competition.
“That’s what it’s all about is serving the patients,” Parker said.
In regards to Arkansans hoping to buy medical marijuana, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Health said more than 400 patient applications have been approved.
credit:fox16.com
