Pubdate: Tue, 10 May 2016
Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)
Copyright: 2016 Orlando Sentinel
Contact:  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/325
Note: Rarely prints out-of-state LTEs.
Author: Dara Kam, News Service of Florida

MEDICAL-MARIJUANA CHALLENGE INVOLVES LICENSES FOR GROWERS

TALLAHASSEE - A new law that protects five nurseries may have given 
more ammunition to "ganjapreneurs" seeking an entry into what could 
be one of the nation's largest medical-marijuana markets come this fall.

The law was intended to inoculate from pending legal challenges the 
five growers, and their teams of consultants and investors, selected 
by Florida health officials in November to serve as medical marijuana 
dispensing organizations, responsible for growing, processing and 
distributing cannabis products to a limited population of patients. 
While the law did just that, it also gave at least one losing 
applicant new grounds for its existing complaint.

Under the 2016 law, the five growers selected last fall by a 
three-member panel - who ranked the applications within different 
regions and awarded licenses to the top scorers - are allowed to keep 
their licenses. The law also requires health officials to grant 
licenses to organizations whose administrative or legal challenges 
are successful.

And the law requires that any nursery that was the top scorer in a 
region must receive a license, even if health officials deemed it 
ineligible. McCrory's Sunny Hill Nursery is claiming that it also 
must receive a license because of that provision.

McCrory's contends that it should have received the highest score in 
its region, where health officials granted a license to Knox Nursery. 
McCrory's and Redland Nursery were already challenging Knox's license 
when the new law went into effect this spring.

In an amended complaint filed May 2, McCrory's argues that it should 
receive a license without having to go through the process of being 
re-evaluated. Of the seven applicants in the Central region, the 
panel gave McCrory's an aggregate score of 5.5417, just below Knox, 
whose score of 5.5458 earned the Lake Mary-based grower a license. 
"The scoring error resulted in the department erroneously awarding 
the highest score to Knox," McCrory's lawyers David Ashburn and 
Lorence Jon Bielby wrote.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom