Steve Burns
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON – (WMAL) For the first time Monday, Marylanders will know where potential medical marijuana dispensaries will be located. Preliminary winners of the much-sought after licenses are expected to be announced by the state’s Medical Cannabis Commission. They say the release date was delayed thanks to much wider interest than anticipated. 811 applications were received for 94 possible dispensary licenses.
The winners today still have to go through another review and inspection process before they will have formally gained approval. Sales can then start up six months later, but one cannabis veteran says that’s when the real challenges begin.
“We have to fight for the rights of the business owners,” Cheryl Shuman tells WMAL. Shuman is known as the “Martha Stewart of Marijuana,” funding much of the cannabis sector in California. “Keep in mind, because of the conflict in federal and state law, if something happens and they’re in conflict, and we all have to acknowledge that we’re in conflict in federal law, they risk losing everything.”
The biggest issue they deal with in the industry is asset forfeiture, she says. Another challenge is finding investors willing to take that kind of risk.
“The federal government won’t protect them because of the conflict,” she says.
That challenge is often compounded by the fact that state law is still murky on where supplies and things like seeds can come from.
“There’s no clear laws on where the seeds come from,” Shuman says. “You can’t cross state lines with the seeds, and you can’t buy seeds from another area because it’s been illegal in your state up until this time.”
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