CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Jason Frame, the director of state medical marijuana program is confident that once the state Treasurer’s Office finalizes the banking bid for the program it can take off.
Frame told MetroNews that his office gets emails and calls every day from out of state and in-state entities about the application process.
On August 26, the Treasurer’s Office announced its Notice of Intent to Award on Charleston-based Element Federal Credit Union’s proposal.
While the state looks to finalize the details, Frame said his staff continues to work behind the scenes to be ready.
“We are staffing out the office by developing policies and procedures,” he said. “We are working with our contractors to make sure we can implement and release facility applications as soon as possible.”
Frame said the program should have applications ready to be rolled out immediately once the financial solution is finalized. The applications will be for growers, processors, dispensaries to get the buildout of that industry started.
There will be 10 permits given out for growers, 10 permits for processors and up to 100 permits for dispensaries.
A bill passed in the spring that had been signed into law increased the number of dispensaries allowed from 30 to 100.
The law also allows vertical integration. The grower can be a processor and a dispensary selling products to patients. Before, a party could only be a grower and/or processor and not also a dispensary.
Frame did not have exact dates but did have an idea of when the banking process may get done.
“It’s reasonable at this point to expect applications to be released this fall,” he said. “The law mandates us to give a 30 days notice of application release. I would encourage people to use our website to be aware of that notice.”
The program is still probably two years away from full operation, Frame said.
To follow the application process go to medcanwv.org. The permits will be awarded by a numerically based scoring system based on responses in the application.