LITTLE ROCK (KFSM) — Two startups located in Little Rock and Jonesboro posted the highest scores among the nearly 200 medical marijuana dispensary applications that were unexpectedly released late Thursday afternoon (Dec. 20) by the state Medical Marijuana Commission (MMC).
The Freedom of Information (FOIA) document dump comes one day after the five-person MMC board, chaired by Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman, postponed a highly-anticipated meeting scheduled for Wednesday to announce the dispensary scores from a pool of nearly 198 applications until new board members are seated at a rescheduled meeting on Jan. 9.
According to Department of Finance and Administration spokesman Scott Hardin, the dispensary scores were released in response to numerous FOIA requests concerning a recently completed review by Boston-based Public Consulting Group (PCG).
Talk Business & Politics was one of the media organizations that submitted a request for the dispensary records.
Little Rock-based Acanza Health Group and dozens of potential dispensary owners across the state will now compete for the chance to bring the state’s first legal cannabis products to market sometime in the first half of 2019.
Among the 198 applications submitted to PCG in October, Acanza came back with the two highest scores, posting tallies of 381.11 and 379.61, respectively.
The third-highest cumulative total came from Jonesboro-based Valentine Holdings LLC, which posted a score of 371.33.
Among the top 32 scores listed today were companies that have already received one of the five licenses to open cannabis cultivation facilities and several limited liability partnerships with applications to open retail dispensaries in more than one of the eight retail zones evenly spread across the state.
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