Nearly $17 million on the line for medical marijuana

The state was ill-prepared for the wave of applicants it received for those wishing to operate medical marijuana cultivation, dispensary, manufacturing or testing facilities.

So the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has drafted a new rule requiring those applicants to respond within 48 hours to notifications they have been awarded the licenses for the sites.

The new rule fits standards for emergency rules because there was an unanticipated need for the new procedure, and time won't allow for normal rule-making procedures, DHSS Public Information Officer Lisa Cox said.

"No one anticipated the number of applications for business licenses that were actually submitted in August," Cox wrote in an email to the News Tribune. "It is most economical for the state and for potential medical marijuana businesses to offer existing, scored applicants an opportunity to accept licenses that become available, rather than asking them to resubmit and pay for a new application, particularly if licenses become available shortly after applicants and the state have incurred expenses related to application submittal, processing and scoring."

The new rules establish procedures that allow applicants who have already paid fees an additional chance to use those fees and take advantage of licenses that come open again in 2020, Cox said.

Those who fail to respond within 48 hours will be "conditionally denied" for 395 days.

Licenses that come open will again be offered to the highest ranked applicants.

DHSS received 2,163 applications for licenses to operate medical marijuana cultivation facilities, manufacturing facilities and dispensaries. Hopefuls have provided $16,796,901 in nonrefundable fees for applications for licenses for facilities. This corrects data the newspaper reported last Wednesday.

Fees for applications for cultivation facilities are $10,000; dispensary facilities, $6,000; manufacturing facilities, $6,000; Laboratory testing facilities, $5,000; seed to sale, $5,000; transporters, $5,000; and facility agent, $75.

DHSS scored applications based on principal applicants' character, letters of recommendation, previous business experience, alignment with the communities they represent, tax history, previous history with licensed businesses and criminal history.

DHSS notified applicants last week that it has drafted an emergency rule to require people wishing to operate the facilities to respond within 48 hours to notification their application has been accepted. If the applicant for the license or certification does not confirm acceptance within the time frame under the proposed rule, the license will be offered to the next ranked facility.

"DHSS will make every effort to alert applicants of license issuance via the contact information they chose to designate for this purpose as well as through public announcement that licenses are being issued," Cox said. "We will do everything in our power to make contact with these applicants.

"When details on our end are ironed out, we will give notice to how they will be contacted and when, approximately."

The rule may be found at health.mo.gov/safety/medical-marijuana/pdf/19CSR-30-95.028.pdf.

DHSS is asking that the public provide input on the rule by emailing comments or suggestions to [email protected].

"As with the previous batch of emergency rules, we will accept and incorporate public comment before filing the emergency rule, and we will file proposed rules at the same time in order to send the rule through the traditional rule-making process as soon as possible," Cox said.