Six medical cannabis cultivator applicants are suing Ohio claiming that regulators didn’t follow their own rules in scoring and awarding the 12 licenses to grow cannabis for the state program, Cleveland.com reports. The lawsuit aims to block the state from awarding the licenses.
Among the claims:
- Scores for at least 14 of the applications were incorrectly calculated.
- Two scoring consultants had advance knowledge of the scoring rubric and had conflicts of interest with companies awarded licenses.
- The two minority-owned businesses that were awarded licenses didn’t meet the criteria for the social-equity licenses.
- Five licenses were awarded to companies that should have been disqualified for not meeting the pass-fail criteria or had misrepresented compliance with requirements.
The errors led “to a fundamentally arbitrary, capricious, unfair, and flawed scoring process” and the plaintiffs spent millions of dollars to comply with “rules the department did not properly enforce or follow,” according to Cleveland.com‘s review of the complaint.
The plaintiffs include:
- CannAscend Ohio LLC
- Appalachian Pharm Products LLC
- CannaMed Therapeutics LLC
- Palliatech Ohio LLC
- Trillium Holdings, Inc.
- Schottenstein Aphria LLC
The suit is filed in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. Officials told Cleveland.com that they plan on continuing to establish the program, which is required under the law to be operating by Sept. 8.
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