The Natalie M. LaPrade Medical Cannabis Commission (MMCC) is pleased to announce that more than 160 applications were received for medical cannabis grower and processor licenses. The highly anticipated 60-day application period for new grower and processor licenses closed on Friday May 25, 2019 at 5:00 PM EST. The new licenses are the result of emergency legislation adopted by the Maryland General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Hogan in 2018 to increase participation among small, minority, and women business owners and entrepreneurs in the medical cannabis program.
Due to extremely high traffic levels around the submission deadline, some applicants may have encountered technical issues submitting the application using the online application portal. The MMCC is committed to working with each impacted applicant to ensure their concerns are addressed. The Commission is working to investigate a number of different technical issues encountered, the precise nature of each issue, and the extent to which any of those issues could have acted as a bar to prevent the timely submission of an application that would have been completed on time but for the technical issue.
“We know how hard folks have worked over the past several months to put together highly qualified applications” said MMCC Chairman Brian Lopez. “The Commission does not intend to penalize applicants who would have submitted complete application packages on time if they had not encountered system errors beyond their control.
” By Friday May 31, the MMCC will notify each applicant who submitted timely payment of whether their application package is complete or additional information is required. 2 “We will work with each and every applicant who faced a technical issue submitting the application to better understand the issues encountered and any opportunities to address these issues” stated Joy Strand, MMCC Executive Director. “The Commission has stressed fairness and transparency throughout the application period, and we remain committed to providing all applicants and stakeholders with a transparent view of the process.”
The application review period is scheduled to run from May 25, 2019 to July 26, 2019. An independent panel of subject matter experts will evaluate the strength of the applications across a wide-range of topics, including business operations, commercial horticulture and agriculture, commercial laboratory operations, communications, financial management, human resources, pharmaceutical manufacturing operations, and safety and security and present their recommendations to the MMCC. The MMCC intends to award up to four medical cannabis grower licenses and up to ten medical cannabis processor licenses.
Source: mmcc.maryland.gov