Well, perhaps I spoke too soon when I told you that the Charlotte’s Web law wouldn’t see any more hold-ups regardless of the legal challenges that are pending. From a business standpoint I can understand how much of a problem it would be to have to shut one place down and open up another – but looking at it from the outside, from the view of someone waiting for this medicine to help their child, this is getting ridiculous.
After almost two years, it seemed like we were finally getting somewhere – the licenses had been awarded; and even when we heard of the pending legal challenges the Department of Health finally seemed to be making the right decision in allowing the original chosen nurseries to start producing the low-THC cannabis anyway.
Now however, three of the nurseries who were denied a license are filing an injunction that would potentially stop the chosen nurseries in their regions from growing cannabis at all until the final decisions are made.
The company’s filing the injunction include McCrory’s Sunny Hill Nursery LLC., San Felasco Nurseries Inc. and 3 Boys Farm (formerly Tornello Landscaping Corp.). If a judge rules in their favor, then the nurseries affected would include Chestnut Hill, Alpha Foliage and Knox Nursery.
“Our rights are substantially affected by the Department’s decisions and we are entitled to due process and judicial review,” said Jim McKee, an attorney with Foley & Lardner LLP, in statement. “In fairness, and consistent with the position taken by administrative law judges on the issue, we are asking the Circuit Court to prevent the Department from moving forward and effectively depriving us of our due process rights until these issues can be settled. Normally the action of an agency is stayed until an administrative hearing is held. This is all we are asking for here.”
One of the three potentially affected companies, Chestnut Hill, filed their own lawsuit the next day in what had been a preparatory move to prevent delay in the event an injunction was filed. This was smart thinking on their part and hopefully this will allow them to move forward with their plans to have cannabis available by the late summer.
The best news of all? At the very least, this is only affecting 3 out of the 5 nurseries that were awarded licenses. However, the only nursery that does not have pending challenges against their license is Costa Farms in the southeast region.
Costa Farms is hoping to have low-THC cannabis available to those living (or willing to travel) to the southwest region of the state by September. While this means that not quite everything is at a standstill, one dispensing company alone cannot supply all in the state who need and qualify for this medicine.
Originally, the Department of Health had told the nurseries they would have to request cultivation authorization by February 7th – so hopefully sometime in the next couple of weeks we will know exactly where all this stands. For now, it’s looking like there’s still going to be a bit of a wait before the low-THC strain is available throughout the state.
