Nonprofits sue over state's medical marijuana licensing

April 02, 2011

non-profits that want to sell medical marijuna... are suing governor susana martinez and the state health department. gadi schwartz got his hands on that lawsuit. he is live in santa fe with what's in it. out of 116 applications- only 25 non- profits have been approved to sell marijuana in the state legally. those who are stuck in the red tape are now taking it to court. biomed prescriptions- glidden agriculture medical marijuana inc- all - have spent time and money forming non profit groups - selecting a board- and setting up a business- before they could even apply to sell medical marijuana. a lawsuit filed in district court today is saying many of those non profits have jumped through all the necessary hoops- but still have not been given a license to sell medical cannabis- while a select few have... no producer has actually been denied at all since the program began in fact everytime the program goes through a review process of any of the applications those applicants have actually been given the opportunity to revise their proposals. the lawsuit alleges the selection process is too vague- and seeks to call to court the health department and governor susana martinez - who in the past has vowed to do away with the program. health officials say they are working on new guidelines that will more clearly spell out what applicants need to have - so licenses can be approved more quickly. we want to make sure that we can provide the best services for the patients so yeah there is no way to actually say it's going to take us two months, three months, it really depends on the quality of the proposal. sources say leading the charge on this lawsuit is a well known venture capitalist in santa fe- calls to the lawyer filing the suit were not returned.