Ohio鈥檚 medical marijuana program is supposed to be on September 8. But there are several court battles over problems with the process of choosing cultivators, and some fear it might delay the start of the program.
Republican state Sen. Bill Coley says patients need Ohio鈥檚 medical marijuana program to be ready to go on day one. So he鈥檚 come up with that would allow a do-over in the scoring process.
鈥淵ou鈥檇 rescore with independent people who don鈥檛 have conflicts doing the scoring,鈥� Coley says. 鈥淎nd you鈥檇 look at all of the scores and anybody that scored above the lowest the current provisional license holders, if they scored above the current provisional license holders, they鈥檇 be granted an additional license.鈥�
But some lawmakers, like Democratic Sen. Kenny Yuko, are not on board.
鈥淚t would be challenging, time-wise, to get anything passed," Yuko says.
Yuko says the focus now needs to be moving to get the program in place by September 8. Already, Commerce Department officials say not all the growers, dispensaries and manufacturers will be ready by then.
Ohio Auditor Dave Yost also says the program can鈥檛 be paused, although he鈥檚 continuing his audit.
Yost found that some growers were from licenses due to scoring errors, and that some Commerce Department employees had to the online accounts of application reviewers.
