Pubdate: Sat, 07 Nov 2015
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2015 The Baltimore Sun Company
Contact:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Erin Cox

BIG OPPORTUNITIES SEEN IN MD. MEDICAL MARIJUANA

More Than 350 Apply for Licenses to Grow, Process or Dispense It

"We could be very successful here." Dr. Greg Daniel, who hopes to 
operate a "seed-to-sale" operation that grows marijuana, processes it 
and sells it at a dispensary

Maryland's nascent medical marijuana industry is already booming.

More than 350 applicants for licenses to grow, process or dispense 
medical marijuana were filed with the state's Medical Cannabis 
Commission by Friday evening's deadline as entrepreneurs try to get 
in at the ground floor of the newest pot market. The applications 
cover every county in the state.

"It's very busy, and we're very excited," said Dr. Paul Davies, the 
commission's chairman. "There's an awful lot of excitement buzzing around."

State officials said they had counted only some of the applications 
received. Already, they have processed nearly three times more 
applications than there are grower licenses available and at least 
twice as many dispensary applications than they can award.

The huge demand is typical of a new medical marijuana market, said 
Troy Dayton, CEO of ArcView, a cannabis industry research firm. Apart 
from the District of Columbia, Maryland is the first jurisdiction 
south of the Mason-Dixon line that has a medical marijuana industry, he noted.

Maryland represents the frontier in the legal cannabis industry, 
which has more than doubled over the past two years to $3.5 billion 
in 2015, according to ArcView.

"The biggest opportunity in the cannabis industry is the opportunity 
to be a limited license holder in a state that is likely to expand," 
Dayton said. "It makes a lot of sense that people would put a lot of 
time and resources into their applications and really swing for fences."

And because Maryland set up its industry to award licenses on a 
merit-based system with high fees to apply, Dayton said, it is likely 
that the businesses that ultimately win licenses will be successful.

"You have people really vested in the success of that effort," he 
said. "And they have a protected market. They're guaranteed a flow of 
customers."

Bill Aziskinazi and his wife, Lori, hedged their bets and applied for 
five dispensary licenses, even though they only planned to operate 
one. By law, a person cannot hold more than a single license, but the 
Aziskinazis wanted to be competitive.

"We hope to not just be the traditional dispensary," said Aziskinazi, 
who filed applications under the limited liability company CannaBus, 
which would theoretically ferry marijuana to patients in underserved 
areas, including prisons. His wife applied for stand-alone 
dispensaries under the company Grateful Meds LLC.

Like other applicants, the couple said they spent hundreds of 
thousands of dollars just to complete the application.

They interviewed several doctors before picking one to be their 
medical director. They hired an information technology expert and a 
security specialist. For the Aziskinazis, the venture is personal. 
Decades ago, their then-teenage son had a condition that was 
alleviated by a synthetic form of medical marijuana they could find 
only in Canada after months of searching.

If they receive a license, they say, they hope their business will 
save other families from a similar ordeal.

"We wanted to help a lot of people," Aziskinazi said.

Maryland's medical marijuana program has stirred much interest in the 
industry, said Taylor West, deputy director at the National Cannabis 
Industry Association.

Not only are there few medical marijuana programs on the East Coast, 
she said, but Maryland's approach to treating a broad range of 
conditions and awarding a fair number of licenses makes it an 
attractive place to invest.

"This is a brand-new market where there really isn't an established 
set of businesses there," West said. "So getting in at the ground 
floor, treating patients and building a reputation has a lot of value."

The breadth of Maryland's medical marijuana program attracted Dr. 
Greg Daniel and his associates to the state. They plan to build what 
he calls a "seed-to-sale" operation that grows the marijuana, 
processes it and then sells it at a dispensary.

Daniel said he has talked to officials in Easton about converting an 
old Black & Decker factory into a growing and processing plant, and 
he applied to operate a dispensary near Baltimore-Washington 
International Thurgood Marshall Airport. The total cost to build the 
operation would be about $10 million.

For more than a decade, Daniel ran a doctor-staffing business before 
getting into the medical marijuana industry. He said he narrowly 
missed the cutoff to be awarded one of the few licenses available in 
New York, where he is based, but sees a bigger potential market in 
Maryland because of the way the program is set up.

"We could be very successful here," said Daniel. "The number of 
patients that we would be able to treat would be greater in the 
Maryland marketplace."

In 2013, Maryland lawmakers approved a medical marijuana program that 
relied on academic institutions to distribute the drug, whose sale is 
prohibited under federal law. No university volunteered to 
participate, so the legislature retooled the program in 2014. The 
program authorizes physicians in the state to recommend the drug for 
a specific set of conditions, with 15 growers and as many as 94 
dispensaries to supply it.

The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission spent months crafting 
regulations on how to implement the law, and even longer developing 
the complicated application that stretches more than 60 pages. Most 
of the questions require an essay answer, plus proof that the 
applicant can pay for the operation.

The commission plans to have an independent third-party review and 
score all of the applications - with names of applicants redacted - 
to determine which ones make the first cut.

The commission came under fire last year for setting some of the 
highest fees in the medical marijuana industry, charging $125,000 to 
growers for a two-year license and $40,000 for a dispensary.

But the cost apparently did not scare off many applicants.

Tony Toskov said he became interested in the business because his 
wife suffers from migraines and he hopes medical marijuana might 
alleviate her symptoms.

"I hope everyone's doing it for the right reasons," said Toskov, a 
restaurateur who owns several Anne Arundel County locales and has 
applied to operate a dispensary in Baltimore, Washington or Anne 
Arundel. "It's not a pot store; you're getting into the medical business."
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