Forward Motion (Editorial)

It has always seemed like there should have been a better, fairer and certainly easier way to award the five marijuana cultivation licenses allowed in the state by the medical marijuana amendment that Arkansas voters approved 20 months ago. The ultimately subjective scoring of each application — 95 of them filling up to 1,000 pages each — by the Medical Marijuana Commission led to complaints as predictable as those of Razorbacks fans against the referees.

Only slightly less predictable were a legal challenge, an appeal and even the revelation that a commissioner was offered a bribe.

It’s too late to wonder why the MMC didn’t use the same time-tested approach used by the Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to distribute package store licenses when a county goes wet: set a deadline for applications, determine whether each applicant meets all legal requirements and then draw randomly from among the qualified applicants.

Another idea might be to auction off licenses — to qualified applicants, of course — the way the federal government auctions airwaves. Yes, that would favor the deepest pockets, but it benefits the government that will have to regulate the industry perpetually.

But that’s smoke up the chimney now that the five licenses have finally been awarded, to the same applicants who were originally selected by the commissioners. All that’s been lost are time and legal fees — which is easy to say for those of us who don’t have a medical condition that marijuana might relieve and who aren’t paying the lawyers.

Congratulations to Natural State Medicinals Cultivation, Bold Team LLC, Natural State Wellness Enterprises, Osage Creek Cultivation and Delta Medical Cannabis Co., who can now create a new industry in Arkansas. Here’s hoping the dispensary licensing is more efficient.