Prominent Arkansans have accused their attorney friends of setting them up as figurehead owners of medical marijuana dispensaries, sticking them with massive tax bills and casting new doubts on the integrity of the state’s cannabis licensing system.
Two lawsuits, filed in St. Francis and Pope counties, feature big names in Arkansas’ legal and business worlds. One attorney in the Little Rock firm, Steel Wright Gray, is suing his own firm and partners. The suits prompted some cannabis businesses to call for a state investigation and led the author of the 2016 amendment that legalized medical cannabis to demand audits of all state marijuana companies.
The plaintiffs say SWG used them as decoy owners for dispensaries in Heber Springs and Morrilton to gain favor in the licensing process and meet a constitutional requirement that 60% of owners be Arkansans. The suits allege SWG was working on behalf of a Virginia client, Edward S. “Eddie” Garcia, who hoped to snap up as many dispensary licenses as possible. Garcia died in 2019.
One plaintiff is Marshall Wright, an ex-state legislator and a law partner of the two individual defendants, Alex Gray and Nate Steel of SWG. Another plaintiff is pharmacist and lawyer Scott Pace, a former CEO of the Arkansas Pharmacists Association and now a partner at the lobbying firm Impact Management Group of Little Rock.
Read more at arkansasbusiness.com