Pubdate: Sat, 12 Jul 2014
Source: Metrowest Daily News (MA)
Copyright: 2014 MetroWest Daily News
Contact:  http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/619

DPH MARIJUANA LICENSING PROCESS BACK ON TRACK

The Department of Public Health's recent announcement that 11 of the 
20 medical marijuana dispensary applicants have moved forward in the 
process and that nine were rejected is welcome. The DPH this week 
also outlined a process for a second round of applications for 
licenses in counties that have yet to land a dispensary. The 
announcements indicate the DPH licensing process is at last on track.

We're particularly struck with Karen van Unen, the newly installed 
executive director of the medical marijuana program, and her frank 
assessment of those applicants that were not selected. Each letter to 
the rejected applicants details the flaws in the initial approval 
phase and other issues van Unen herself uncovered. Those letters 
serve as evidence of van Unen's keen understanding of the concerns 
raised by critics of the process, and her commitment to hold DPH to 
higher standard. Equally impressive is that van Unen chose to share 
on DPH's website the full contents of each letter. For a process 
that's been sorely lacking in transparency, we're pleased to see that 
there's a renewed commitment to it at the state agency. Openness 
benefits not just the public's interest, but the agency's. Reading 
through the letters, which the public may do by visiting the DPH 
website, it's clear that Van Unen took the time to read each 
application, investigate external criticism and then address those 
concerns and her own with each applicant. In other words, it was the 
thorough vetting process the public deserves. As an example, in her 
four-page rejection letter to Medical Marijuana of Massachusetts, a 
company led by former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, van Unen notes that 
Delahunt and his MMM colleagues structured the technically nonprofit 
company to direct considerable sums of money to their for-profit 
management company, "Triple M," by "... collecting 25 percent of 
gross revenues for services that are being primarily rendered by MMMs 
own management team." The totals, according to Mass Medical's own 
projections, would have been $10.6 million in the first three years. 
Some of the criticism of the DPH licensing process has come from 
predictable sources: Political leaders and media outlets opposed to 
medical marijuana from the beginning, not-in-my-backyard types 
fighting a particular proposal, or applicants whose proposals were 
rejected. That's all the more reason why DPH should have been 
scrupulously transparent from the start. It wasn't, and responding to 
the uproar caused needless delays and a loss of public trust. We're 
hopeful that the DPH now has the right organizational structure, the 
right people and the right priorities to manage what was always sure 
to be a complicated process, and that the medical marijuana approved 
by voters and sorely needed by long-suffering patients will soon be available.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom