Maryland’s top court hears case on medical marijuana growers’ dispute
ANNAPOLIS, Md. Companies in the final running for licenses to grow medical marijuana should be able to defend their multimillion-dollar investments against a legal challenge over how those finalists were picked, an attorney for the state argued Thursday in court.
The Court of Appeals, Marylands top judicial body, heard oral arguments about whether those companies should be allowed to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the governments selection of finalists. At issue is a decision by a lower court judge that barred the finalists from involvement in the case.
Alternative Medicine Maryland, an applicant not chosen, alleges in a lawsuit that the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission didnt consider the racial diversity of the applicants for licenses as required. The groups attorney, Byron Warnken, has argued that the government agency violated state law in choosing finalists.
An order by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams prohibits the finalists from intervening in the suit.
Yet Julia Bernhardt, an assistant attorney general, said the finalists have a direct economic interest in the lawsuits outcome. She added that the medical cannabis commission cant represent them, because it defends the public interest.
Theres just something unseemly with charging a regulating body with protecting the economic interest of the very market participants that its regulating, Bernhardt told the court. Its just not workable.
She called for the Court of Appeals to reverse Williams decision.
Maryland law allows 15 medical marijuana growers. So far, the commission has only awarded one license.
Some growers have hoped to make medical marijuana available to patients by the end of the summer.
The lawyer for Alternative Medicine Maryland, Warnken, said finalists for the licenses shouldnt be involved in the case.
Private companies who may have benefited from such a violation should not be permitted to intervene in the challenge to the governments failures, Warnken said.
But Arnold Weiner, representing the finalists, noted that his client companies have invested tens of ...
