Anyone who is surprised by this week’s court challenge to the state’s award of medical marijuana growing permits last month has forgotten one of the principles of the legalized pot industry: it’s about the money.
High-minded motives (no pun intended), public opinion, political realities and medical research aside, the essence of the lawsuit filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court Monday by GTI Maryland against the Maryland Medical Marijuana Commission is about who is in line to get the big money and how they got there.
Shore Natural RX, which received preliminary approval from the commission to grow marijuana in Worcester County still has to survive what the state calls a rigorous inspection of its production plans. It must now also deal with the revelation that it apparently got bumped up in the state’s rankings to ensure that this region got its share of this new industry’s revenue.
According to multiple newspaper reports, Shore Natural RX finished well out of the top 15 applicants that were in line for licenses, while GTI Maryland was ranked 12th.
Whether that was fair — and abided by the legal parameters under which the commission was supposed to operate — is what the court is being asked to decide.
Regardless, the entire selection scramble smells like a cheap stick of haze-masking incense. Many of the contending companies’ partnerships and employee rosters were stacked with political donors, former and current office holders, health officials and a surprising number of former law enforcement officers.
Shore Natural RX apparently didn’t have high profile partners or employees and maybe it suffered in the rankings as a result.
For all anyone knows, having a former top law enforcement official or a prominent state business person in a position of authority affected a company’s rankings as much or more than the geographical diversity the commission said it wanted to achieve.
Maryland government made one big mess of this thing. But, of course, money will do that.