Articles Posted in Maryland Legislature

Medical marijuana has made frequent appearances in the local news headlines over the last few years as the program has been wrought with controversy over long delays and alleged unfair awarding of grower licenses. Litigation further threatens a successful launch of the program within the next year, but there is a sleeping giant lurking that could render all the back and fourth of the last three years moot. Legalizing marijuana would instantly make an afterthought out of the medical marijuana program, which would essentially become the minor leagues. While marijuana has numerous legitimate medical uses and can work wonders for patients, a large portion of the medical card holders will inevitably be made up of recreational users who obtained a card to be able to legally do something they enjoy.

There is no way hundreds of investors would put up millions of dollars to chase massive profits if their customer base was limited to those with an actual medical need for pot. The second marijuana is legalized most users will have no use for the medical program, save for the few diehards that would keep or obtain their cards to have access to a wider range of products at a cheaper price like in other states. It now seems as if Maryland is finally about to take the first step toward making legalization a reality.

This week lawmakers from both the Senate and the House of Delegates are expected to introduce legislation aimed at regulating and taxing the legal sale of recreational marijuana in Maryland. It’s a step that should have been taken years ago had lawmakers not been preoccupied with righting the sinking medical marijuana ship. The bills are currently in the process of being drafted, but they will likely consist of regulations similar to those currently in place with respect to the sale and consumption of alcohol. The age to legally use pot would be 21 and it would be illegal to consume it while driving. Adults could possibly be allowed to grow their own plants but there would be a likely cap of 6 plants with 3 being mature, and prior convictions for possession over 10 grams would be eligible for expungement. A separate law will likely be dedicated to taxing pot sales, with the State Comptroller’s Officer being tabbed with that responsibility. As much as half the profits from tax revenue could go toward public school funding, with other portions going to drug treatment and DUI prevention and education. The tax rate could be similar to the 9 percent rate currently in place for alcohol.

Medical marijuana has had a tough time catching on in Maryland as roadblocks have sprung up each step of the way. First the legislature failed to craft a legitimate medical cannabis program, and a year later when a real program arrived they failed to adequately fund a commission to draft its rules. Then the underfunded and inexperienced commission drastically miscalculated the number of expected grower and distributor applications, which lead to massive delays in the awarding of licenses. When the licenses were finally awarded three potential growers sued for unjust denial of their applications, and their cases are pending in court. Many of these roadblocks were predictable, and could have been avoided with greater cooperation among politicians and more resources dedicated to the launching the program. However the latest roadblock was not expected and could end up disrupting the medical marijuana program if and when it finally gets rolling.

A public records request revealed that only 172 Maryland doctors have signed up to potentially prescribe medical marijuana, which translates to about 1 percent of the 16,000 docs practicing medicine in the state. State officials are concerned that the lack of prescribing doctors could cause a serious bottleneck in the process of getting medical pot to the patient. We will certainly have enough growers, distributors and buyers, but the chain is not complete without the doctors writing the scripts. Potential patients could be forced to wait weeks or even months to see a doctor, and the huge numbers game could cause these doctors to fly through screenings at a pace similar to the pill mills that lawmakers and medical boards are trying to eliminate. Officials at MedChi fear that the end result will be the medical marijuana program becoming a façade for recreational use, as doctors with long lines of patients will be ill prepared to distinguish those with a medical need from those who simply want to enjoy high quality pot.

Once the program gets going there will likely be more doctors jumping on board. The free market will work itself out and doctors will eventually see the positives in running a lucrative and legitimate business that does not involve being on call at all hours of the night. An influx of new doctors who are more open to alternative types of medicine will also be more likely to stand behind the benefits of marijuana and less hesitant to prescribe it. A lack of doctors is not likely to be the downfall of the state’s already troubled medical marijuana program, as legalization will eventually be the kill shot for medical pot. Patients who benefit from ingesting cannabis may have to jump through hoops and wait in long lines for a year or two in order to legally obtain relief, but the day is coming when a trip to the dispensary and a valid ID is all it will take for access to all forms of cannabis. The federal government may be slow to change its designation of marijuana as a schedule 1 controlled substance, but the new administration will let the states decide their own pot policies. The people have spoken in influential states such as California and Massachusetts and it’s only a matter of time before the issue goes to a vote in Maryland.

Just shy of ten years ago the Maryland legislature voted to legalize statewide casino gambling. The governor signed the gambling bill into law shortly thereafter, and three years later the first casino opened its doors for business in Cecil County. The five operational casinos in Maryland have generated over a billion dollars in revenue since 2010, and come December this number will increase dramatically with the opening of the massive MGM National Harbor Casino in Prince George’s County. Most would consider the casino program a success as thousands of jobs have been created to go along with the millions in tax revenue. While it took decades to pass legalized gambling, the process of turning a signed bill into an open casino progressed relatively smoothly, and was night and day compared to the state medical marijuana program’s progression from bill to pot shop.

The Blog has been extremely critical of the state medical marijuana commission moving at a snail’s pace to award licenses to grow and sell medical pot, but some of the blame should also fall on lawmakers. In 2007 when gambling became legal the legislature added four full-time members to the Maryland Lottery Commission to oversee the process of awarding casino licenses. The members were given a 2.3 million dollar budget, and were able to use this money to hire industry experts to help hammer out the licensing process. In contrast, the medical marijuana commission consisted of volunteer members and a $125,000 yearly budget. The committee members were not experts, and had no firsthand knowledge of how to create a medical marijuana program. There were doctors, lawyers and police officers but nobody even resembling a marijuana producer or distributor. Their paltry budget made it nearly impossible to hire experts from the private sector or from other states with existing programs, and the result is a medical pot program that has taken longer to get off the ground than the 25 other programs in the country.

The failure of lawmakers to appropriately equip the current commission stems from their creation of the bust that was the 2013 medical marijuana law. Lawmakers created the commission to oversee the original 2013 medical pot law, which only permitted the program to function through public and private academic institutions. The 2013 law focused on studying the effects of medical marijuana through the legal treatment of patients with cannabis, and relied on universities risking loss of their federal funding to research a theory that has already been proven (medical marijuana works). There were predictably no takers and a year later lawmakers created a legitimate program that would be run by private businesses, thus shifting the focus of the program from research to profit. The problem was that existing medical marijuana commission did not receive the complete overhaul it needed to account for this 180-degree change. Regulating numerous businesses that stand to make millions is an entire different animal than regulating a few universities that aren’t in it for the money.

Even before the medical marijuana commission began the selection process for awarding grower and distributor licenses it was hypothesized that some losing applicants would sue over the unfair process. According to newly drafted regulations, hundreds of qualified applicants ready and able to provide patients with medical cannabis would never get their chance. By drastically limiting the number of licenses, the commission thought it would put the state in a better position to regulate the program, but all it really did was ensure that numerous highly qualified candidates would be shutout. And with tens of millions of dollars at stake it was extremely likely that some of these qualified applicants would not just accept losing, but rather take their fight to the courts. Well, this week the hypothesis rang true as a losing company that planned to grow legal pot in Washington County filed a lawsuit against the Medical Marijuana Commission and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The company filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, and served it on the Attorney General’s Office soon thereafter.

The plaintiff is the same company that we wrote about in our last Blog post, which was originally awarded a license to grow pot but then stripped of it in favor of a Prince George’s County grower just 48 hours later in the interest of “geographical diversity”. If lawsuits against the commission and the DHMH were highly probable at outset of this flawed process, the commissioner’s suspicious change of heart in July made them a mathematical certainty. There was simply no way that the two companies who lost their golden tickets in the eleventh hour would stand down and not take the state to court. In addition to filing suit, the aforementioned company already began to wage a public battle against the process with lawyers and a well known ex NFL player going on camera to bash the unfair process. The former Raven offensive tackle turned medical cannabis investor has been outspoken about the NFL’s archaic policies toward marijuana for a few years, and is well versed relaying his opinions to the media.

The other company that was shut out after the commission’s flip flop has yet to file their lawsuit, though at this point it seems like a foregone conclusion. These lawsuits will probably delay the entire medical marijuana program yet again, but don’t blame the profit seeking growers and their lawyers. Lawmakers took years to pass legitimate medical cannabis legislation, and the commission had months to decide on regulations for the program. Both had dozens of already existing state programs to look at for guidance, but they valued creating a uniquely Maryland program over mimicking one of the many already successful platforms. The patients in need of alternative treatments to narcotic drugs and other prescription medications are the one’s who have suffered, and now it looks as if the relief is even further away. The company who filed the lawsuit has stated publicly that that it does not wish for its litigation to hold up the program’s progress, though delays seems inescapable. Latest predictions have medical marijuana being available in the summer of 2017 but timeliness is not something we have come to expect.

First, state politicians passed a completely ineffective medical marijuana law that unsurprisingly had zero takers. Then a year later when a legitimate medical marijuana program became state law, the commission in charge of writing the policy dragged its feet for months. After going well beyond the allotted time frame for which to craft the regulations of the program, the newly created commission began to accept applications. But as had been the case for the last three years, the commission delayed the process yet again by drastically underestimating the length of time it would take to review the applications. Finally, after two years the commission began awarding licenses to legally grow pot to the 15 (a completely arbitrary number) most qualified candidates. With the licenses issued it was finally time to get to work and plant the first seeds that would ultimately be used to legally treat patients with cannabis for the first time in Maryland history. This was exciting stuff indeed, but lest the reader think that this story has a happy ending we would remind you that nothing related to medical marijuana has come easy in our great state, and awarding the licenses now seems like the beginning of a long battle rather than the end of one.

The medical marijuana commission has taken a ton of heat for not awarding grow licenses to minority owned candidates. This issue has grabbed most of the headlines and has minority leaders up in arms about the process, but it is not the commission’s only highly criticized move of the summer. According to public records the five-member commission chose to award licenses to the top 15 rated candidates, as rated by an independent application reviewer, toward the end of July. Then a week later the members went back on their decision and dropped the last two to make the cut in favor of lower ranked candidates. Apparently one commissioner, a Prince George’s County law enforcement officer, persuaded the other four members to award a license to a PG County applicant instead of a Washington County operation that was ranked higher and had already been selected. A Frederick County applicant was also dropped in favor of a lower ranked Worcester County operation. The dropped applicants were outraged when they caught wind of this change of heart, and rightly so.

While state regulators included geographical diversity as a key factor in awarding the licenses it was never intended to shut out otherwise qualified candidates. But this is exactly what happened when less qualified applicants received licenses solely based on their location. The point of hiring an independent application evaluator was to take any sort of subjectivity and bias out of the process. But it’s easy to see that objectivity goes out the window when a commissioner who has spent his career working in Prince George’s County convinces the other members to select a less qualified candidate from his home county. Even if there were only good intentions the sudden change of heart gives off a strong feeling of impropriety, which is something the commission can ill afford at this time.

Maryland is quickly approaching the notorious distinction of slowest state to implement legalized medical marijuana, and after two years we are still nowhere close seeing the first state dispensaries open their doors. The lawmakers who supported medical marijuana are frustrated, the investment groups who have millions tied up are frustrated, and most importantly the patients who need treatment are frustrated. And to make matters worse, the commission that was established to oversee the program has offered little public explanation for the delays. Back in December we published an article about the commission being overwhelmed by the number of grower and distributor applications, which doomed the January 2016 target date for awarding licenses. The commission, which went without a leader for four months after the executive director resigned in December, did not offer a revised date last winter and they are not offering one now. The only thing we do know is that the firm who is evaluating and ranking the grower and distributor licenses has been retained for an extra four months, and will be paid more than $2 million when it’s all said and done. The firm is supposed to finish ranking the estimated 900 applications by this July, but then the commission must still debate over who will actually receive the licenses.

With so much riding on the application rankings and the ultimate decisions by the commission, there is bound to be heated disputes over the process. The experts hired to review the applications have been kept secret, and have signed affidavits denying any relation to the prospective growers and distributors whose names have been redacted from the applications. But despite these precautions there have still been allegations of secret meetings between state officials and applicants, which has prompted other applicants to call for the process to be more transparent. There are fears that those investors whose applications are denied will file suit and challenge the commission’s decisions in court, thus further delaying the process. With all the money at stake and the mounting frustration it seems like multiple lawsuits over the selection process are inevitable.

In addition to the selection process being under scrutiny, there was also a recent controversial decision by the commission to limit the number of processor applications to 15. There was already a cap of 15 on grower licenses, but there was no such limitation on who could be licensed to process the plant material into other forms such as edibles and oils. This decision was apparently reached with little debate, and once again there was no detailed explanation made available to the public. Now some growers may face the additional expense of outsourcing for their processing needs, and the product may be harder to track after an additional party is involved in production.