The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission met for the first time in three months Monday to discuss how it will move forward with dispensary.
The commission wants to explore the option of hiring an independent consultant to score the applications to sell marijuana. This comes after several months of legal limbo.
"I think it will expedite things, it will also provide trust in the process," said Alex Gray, attorney for the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Association.
This meeting was held after the entire process came to a halt three months ago when the commission was accused of not scoring the cultivation facility applications fairly.
"A lot of the legal challenges relate to relationships to commissions and who they may know," Gray said.
They were given a green light to proceed after the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled the judge who stopped the process didn't have the authority to do so, allowing them to not only issue the five licenses to sell marijuana, but move forward with dispensary applications.
The commission voted Monday 5-0 to explore possibly hiring a third party to do the scoring. A draft is being written now to show the commission what an independent consultant would look like and that will be discussed at their next meeting.
With an emergency rule change, the commission could hire a group within the next few months.
"I think it’s possible we could have dispensary licenses awarded by the end of the year," Gray said.
As far as cultivation facility applications go, the Supreme Court’s decision will be finalized next week and the commission can then issue those five licenses if they chose to. They'll discuss that, plus the dispensary applications, at their next meeting July 12.