State announces five medical cannabis growers
None of the Southwest Arkansas applicants was successful
None of the five cultivation centers that will grow Arkansas’ supply of medical marijuana will operate in the southwest corner of the state, officials said Tuesday.
At a Little Rock meeting, the state Medical Marijuana Commission announced which five applicants it will grant a license to grow cannabis for medicinal use. None of the six applicants who wanted to open a cultivation center in the commission’s Zone 8, which comprises 14 Southwest Arkansas counties including Miller, was successful.
MMC commissioners have spent months scoring the applications, which first had to be redacted to hide applicants’ identifying information in order to avoid favoritism.
Each of the five businesses whose application scored high enough to win a license has seven days to pay the state a $100,000 license fee and secure a $500,000 performance bond. If any of them cannot meet those requirements, the commission will award its license to the next-highest scoring business.
One applicant, Natural State Wellness Enterprises LLC, submitted two applications for cultivation centers that tied for third-highest score. As a result, the company must choose which one it wants to operate and abandon plans for the other.
License applicants paid a $15,000 fee to be considered. The MMC will refund half of that fee to applicants who
finished lower than fifth place in the scoring.
The maximum possible score was 500. The 10 highest-scoring businesses, their locations and their total scores, are:
Natural State Medicinals Cultivation, Jefferson County, 486
Bold Team LLC; Cotton Plant, Woodruff County; 444
Natural State Wellness Enterprises LLC; Jefferson County; 438 (tied)
Natural State Wellness Enterprises LLC; Jackson County; 438 (tied)
Osage Creek Cultivation LLC; Berryville, Carroll County; 432.5
Delta Medical Cannabis Co. LLC; Newport, Jackson County; 432
River Valley Relief Cultivation; Fort Smith, Sebastian County; 427.5 (tied)
New Day Cultivation; Hot Springs, Garland County; 427.5 (tied)
Southern Roots; Jacksonville, Pulaski County; 426.5
Delta Cannabinoid Corp.; Marianna, Lee County; 422
The MMC now turns its attention to scoring hundreds of applications for dispensary licenses, some of which are not yet redacted. The commission will eventually award up to four dispensary licenses for each of eight geographical zones.