The Delta emerged Tuesday as the prime location for Arkansas’ future medical marijuana industry as the state announced its top five picks of companies to receive growing licenses.
The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission released commissioners’ rankings of 95 applicants for cannabis cultivation centers. Four of the five would locate facilities in Jefferson, Jackson and Woodruff counties in the Delta; the fifth would be in Carroll County in Northwest Arkansas.
Tuesday’s announcement marked another step toward getting cannabis into the hands of patients who have qualifying medical conditions to use it, and it came just a little more than 15 months after Arkansans voted to legalize it. The commission’s next step will be awarding licenses to 32 of the 227 applicants seeking to dispense it.
Don Parker, a Jonesboro attorney and co-owner of Delta Medical Cannabis Co. Inc., watched Tuesday’s commission meeting online with his wife. They hugged and jumped up and down when they heard their company’s name announced.
“We’re still just pleasantly shocked,” Parker said in a phone interview. “You know, we felt like we put together a good application, but you just never know. There were so many good applicants.”
The winning cultivation facilities are:
Natural State Medicinals Cultivation (Jefferson County)
Bold Team LLC (Woodruff County)
Natural State Wellness Enterprises (Jackson or Jefferson County)
Osage Creek Cultivation (Carroll County)
Delta Medical Cannabis Co. Inc. (Jackson County)
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Natural State Wellness Enterprises submitted applications for two facilities, but state rules preclude one company from operating more than one cultivation facility.
A spokesman for the group — which includes Hank Wilkins V, the son of Jefferson County’s County Judge Hank Wilkins IV — said Tuesday that it hadn’t yet decided which county it would choose for its operation.
Little is known about the chosen applicants. Information released has mostly been limited to the company name, location and registered agent.
Once the chosen applicants receive notification letters from the commission, each will have seven days to pay a $100,000 licensing fee and post a $500,000 performance bond.
If any company fails to meet those requirements in the time allowed, the opportunity will pass to the next-highest-scoring company.
Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration officials expect commissioners to take several months to sort through the dispensaries applications. Commissioners plan to meet March 14 and set “hard deadlines” on selecting those firms.
The Finance and Administration Department received applications from June 30-Sept. 18; commissioners received redacted copies of all 95 cultivation applications in mid-December, and on Tuesday, they described the grueling process of wading through the proposals, most of which exceeded 1,000 pages each.
“I’m just going to say it, this was almost not feasible,” said Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman, who chairs the five-member commission.
Before being provided to commissioners, the cultivation applications were stripped by Finance and Administration Department staff of all identifying information to remove any hint of bias. Each was graded on a 100-point rubric that included bonus points for categories like ownership diversity and locating in an economically depressed county.
Medical pot is expected to be a boon for poor areas, creating hundreds of jobs, according to the state Department of Finance and Administration. The agency expects medical cannabis to produce $40 million annually in retail sales and $2.4 million in state sales taxes.
All five commissioners’ scores were combined for an aggregate score. The highest-scoring applicant, Natural State Medicinals Cultivation, received 486 total points. The lowest-scoring applicant, Medigrow LLC, received 227 points. Another 13 applicants received no score because they didn’t meet the minimum criteria for consideration.
Department of Finance and Administration officials expect to release copies of the top applications today, which should shed more light on the applicants.
Available information shows that former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel is part of Natural State Wellness Enterprises, and former Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Jason Willett is the registered agent for Delta Medical Cannabis Co.
McDaniel said in a statement Tuesday that his group plans to begin construction soon.
“We appreciate that it is a public trust that has been placed upon our company to produce quality, safe and legal medicine to Arkansas patients,” he said.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s son, Asa Hutchinson III, was the listed agent for unsuccessful cultivation applicant DB Science LLC. Hutchinson III is an attorney and is listed as the incorporator/organizer for several Northwest Arkansas businesses.
Hopeful applicants and future medical cannabis users began lining up outside the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Division’s headquarters well before Tuesday afternoon’s meeting. The line outside the door wove through the parking lot, and city fire marshals barred some from entering the packed fifth-floor meeting room.
Even among unsuccessful applicants, the mood after the meeting remained upbeat. David Eddington, a Marmaduke pharmacist, was disappointed that his group fell short.
“I’m disappointed, but this is still an important day for Arkansas,” he said in the parking lot after Tuesday’s announcement, adding that he hopes the introduction of medical cannabis will help reduce the number of people addicted to opioids.
As for the chosen applicants, they plan to begin constructing facilities in hopes of sowing the first seeds in a few months. After paying the licensing fee and posting bond, each chosen cultivator must pass state regulators’ on-site inspections before starting operations. After that, it will take several months for the cannabis plants to mature enough for harvest and distribution.
Qualifying patients could have access to medical marijuana by the fall, according to industry experts’ earliest projections. Others say the drug won’t be available for purchase until 2019.
The Arkansas Department of Health has approved 4,116 applications for patients’ registry ID cards, and 244 more are pending. The cards will be issued a month before dispensaries open.
Amendment 98, which voters passed in 2016, allows for up to eight cultivation centers, but it gives the commission discretion to decide how many to license. Little Rock attorney David Couch, the amendment’s primary backer, said the commission could issue additional growing licenses later if it determines that demand has exceeded supply statewide or in one particular region.
Qualifying patients will be able to buy no more than 2.5 ounces of usable medical marijuana every two weeks, according to state law.
