As the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission deals with additional investigations, a restraining order and approaching personnel turnover, there is no clear timeline for when the next round of pre-approved cannabis business licenses will be awarded, said acting commission head Will Tilburg.
The commission was set to award four growing and 10 processing licenses to businesses eager to join the burgeoning Maryland industry during its meeting Thursday afternoon. The new licenses were made available under the direction of the Maryland legislature, as part of an effort to increase diversity in the fledgling industry.
However, during Thursday’s commission meeting, commission Chairman Brian Lopez announced the license awards would be delayed. The announcement also came as state legislators raised concerns about the application awarding process.
During Thursday’s commission meeting, Lopez explained that additional internal investigations into the validity of the information submitted by applicant entities is not yet complete. The more than 200 applications were ranked following a blind review done by a team of Morgan State University investigators. Cannabis commissioners voted to approve and subsequently “unblind” the rankings last week, and commission staff is now in the process of verifying critical information provided by the top-ranking applicants.
Tilburg said all of the applicants have been notified of their standing in the unblinded rankings, and the top-ranking entities will likely receive requests in the coming days to verify or provide additional information to the commission. In theory, he said, if it is determined that any of the background info provided by the top-ranking firms is determined to be misrepresentative or false, the commission could look to the next highest-ranker. Decisions about when the new licenses could be awarded will not be made until this veracity check is fully completed, Tilburg said.