Jacob Redmond
Well-Known Member
Sometime in the next month or so, New Hampshire residents will know where four licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries allowed under state law will be located.
The committee charged with choosing developers to run the four treatment centers from among 14 applicants will likely make a final decision at its last planned meeting Monday. The announcement should come in the following weeks, state officials said last week.
The four chosen applicants will be spread evenly across the state, officials from the State Department of Health and Human Services have said.
But if residents want to know if their community is one of the 14 applicants, they are likely out of luck.
A clause in the New Hampshire law legalizing the use of medical marijuana and establishing licenses for four "alternative treatment centers," or dispensaries, says details about the applicants must be kept secret by state officials until the licenses are awarded.
The information can only be released to law enforcement agencies and qualifying patients.
It can also be released to town and city officials upon request, but those officials must keep the information confidential.
That's just the way the law is written, according to Matt Simon, the New England director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which lobbied for the passage of medical marijuana laws in New England.
"This law places a great deal of trust in DHHS to make these decisions," he said. "They've been able to work quietly and in secret on this process."
If someone wants to know if one of the applicants is looking at their town, he said, they wouldn't be able to find out directly from the state.
"You could call the town clerk and they might tell you," he said. "I'd just suggest they wait until next week (when the committee is expected to release its decisions)."
City Manager John A. MacLean said Friday that he has not heard any indication that Keene is on the list of potential spots for a dispensary.
The process is vastly different from how dispensaries in Massachusetts applied for the 35 available licenses in that state.
More than 100 companies applied for the Bay State licenses. Starting with the first of several rounds of the application process, information about the applicants was easily available on the state health department's website.
Entire web pages were filled with PDF copies of the dispensaries' applications, including contact information for the business owners and the precise locations of the dispensaries they wanted to open.
Local media outlets, town officials and residents had the chance during that period to examine the requests and voice their views about the applicants.
Beverly, Mass., Mayor Michael Cahill was running for office in 2012 when two companies applied for a license to run a dispensary in that city.
Cahill said Beverly officials and those in other potential dispensary communities debated over whether they wanted the applicants in their cities and towns.
"There were some communities that were embracing the idea as an economic development opportunity, and others that viewed it with somewhat of a NIMBY (not in my backyard) concern," Cahill said.
The two applicants, both of which were cut in later rounds of the state's application process, were put under intense scrutiny by the Beverly planning board and the city's residents.
Representatives from both companies met with city officials; media and the public had access to all information submitted as part of both companies' application.
Cahill wasn't yet in office when the license applications were being considered, and he said he's not sure how making the information public affected the process.
"I don't know if one way or the other is a better way of doing it," he said.
Conditional licenses were later awarded to 15 applicants across the state. However, the Boston Globe reported in November that the licensing process had been delayed because media outlets and competing applicants had uncovered "questionable" information about some of the applicants.
No dispensaries have opened nearly two years after the law legalizing medical marijuana passed in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts was not the only New England state to release information about applicants for medical marijuana dispensaries.
As Rhode Island began awarding licenses to dispensaries in 2010, it held a public hearing on the 15 applicants for its three available licenses, the Associate Press reported that year.
A spokeswoman for the department of health told the AP then that the hearing was an opportunity for people to weigh in with opinions on the proposals.
Misconceptions about the operation of dispensaries and the medical marijuana law may be one of the reasons New Hampshire officials are reluctant to disclose too much information about the applicants, Simon said.
People might interfere with the process because they don't know how strictly regulated the dispensaries are and worry about marijuana being sold in their communities.
Simon said he said he can understand why the officials charged with choosing from the 14 applicants might want to keep the details to themselves.
"If I was on the selection committee reading the applications, I don't know that I'd want the public reading over my shoulder," Simon said.
Eric Borrin, the director of contracts and procurement for the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services, has overseen the regulatory process for dispensaries in the Granite State.
He said information about the applicants must remain confidential to the committee making the decision "in order to preserve the integrity of this application process and in accordance with state law."
"We wouldn't want to give the appearance of giving a potential applicant or other party an unfair advantage," he said.
New Hampshire's law was partially modeled after Vermont's, according to Lindsey Wells, the Marijuana Program Administrator for the Vermont Department of Public Safety.
"(In Vermont) the applications and all the supplemental information associated with the dispensaries was confidential," Wells said.
Keeping the information out of the public eye eliminated confusion for patients and Vermont residents who may think that all the applicants had received licenses, Wells said.
It also reduced the risk that landlords would hike their rents or that competitors would otherwise interfere with plans for dispensary applicants interested in leasing a specific space, she said.
If a potential dispensary operator knew it would need zoning changes to operate in the town, it would have had to approach the town's officials.
But if no zoning changes were needed, Wells said, no one other than state officials would know a town was the possible site of a dispensary.
"It wouldn't give the public a way to oppose a dispensary coming in," Wells said. "That's the way that the law is."
It's also the way the law works in New Hampshire.
Aside from saying saying they plan to prioritize granting a license to a dispensary in the southwestern part of the state, for example, state officials have given no indication whether one of the 14 applicants might be in Keene.
Some towns' boards of selectmen or zoning officials have revealed they received requests for zoning changes from companies applying for a license.
Without knowing whether a company was eyeing their town for one, some New Hampshire towns have preemptively adjusted their zoning laws to accommodate a dispensary.
In Laconia, the town Zoning Task Force updated its laws last month in case it was chosen.
City Manager Scott Myers said he doesn't know if any of the applications are in Laconia, but city officials wanted to make sure they were prepared.
"We would have no local authority to deny (a dispensary) being here," he said Thursday. "We wanted to be proactive and identify locations that we felt would be most suitable."
Simon said the Marijuana Policy Project has not taken a stance on whether states' dispensary application processes should be open or the information kept secret.
"There's probably some pros and probably some cons," he said.
Simon said his focus is on the ultimate result of the committee's choice rather than the process.
"I am withholding judgement," he said. "We just won't know until we see .... I'm far more concerned with having four quality applications being selected than with anything else."
Until state officials announce their selections, the process will stay under their control.
"This law requires them to choose four," he said. "I hope they're good."
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Sites of possible N.H. medical marijuana dispensaries remains a mystery - SentinelSource.com: The Keene Sentinel Local News
Author: Martha Shanahan
Contact: webmaster@keenesentinel.com
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: SentinelSource.com: Local Matters | News in Keene NH
The committee charged with choosing developers to run the four treatment centers from among 14 applicants will likely make a final decision at its last planned meeting Monday. The announcement should come in the following weeks, state officials said last week.
The four chosen applicants will be spread evenly across the state, officials from the State Department of Health and Human Services have said.
But if residents want to know if their community is one of the 14 applicants, they are likely out of luck.
A clause in the New Hampshire law legalizing the use of medical marijuana and establishing licenses for four "alternative treatment centers," or dispensaries, says details about the applicants must be kept secret by state officials until the licenses are awarded.
The information can only be released to law enforcement agencies and qualifying patients.
It can also be released to town and city officials upon request, but those officials must keep the information confidential.
That's just the way the law is written, according to Matt Simon, the New England director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which lobbied for the passage of medical marijuana laws in New England.
"This law places a great deal of trust in DHHS to make these decisions," he said. "They've been able to work quietly and in secret on this process."
If someone wants to know if one of the applicants is looking at their town, he said, they wouldn't be able to find out directly from the state.
"You could call the town clerk and they might tell you," he said. "I'd just suggest they wait until next week (when the committee is expected to release its decisions)."
City Manager John A. MacLean said Friday that he has not heard any indication that Keene is on the list of potential spots for a dispensary.
The process is vastly different from how dispensaries in Massachusetts applied for the 35 available licenses in that state.
More than 100 companies applied for the Bay State licenses. Starting with the first of several rounds of the application process, information about the applicants was easily available on the state health department's website.
Entire web pages were filled with PDF copies of the dispensaries' applications, including contact information for the business owners and the precise locations of the dispensaries they wanted to open.
Local media outlets, town officials and residents had the chance during that period to examine the requests and voice their views about the applicants.
Beverly, Mass., Mayor Michael Cahill was running for office in 2012 when two companies applied for a license to run a dispensary in that city.
Cahill said Beverly officials and those in other potential dispensary communities debated over whether they wanted the applicants in their cities and towns.
"There were some communities that were embracing the idea as an economic development opportunity, and others that viewed it with somewhat of a NIMBY (not in my backyard) concern," Cahill said.
The two applicants, both of which were cut in later rounds of the state's application process, were put under intense scrutiny by the Beverly planning board and the city's residents.
Representatives from both companies met with city officials; media and the public had access to all information submitted as part of both companies' application.
Cahill wasn't yet in office when the license applications were being considered, and he said he's not sure how making the information public affected the process.
"I don't know if one way or the other is a better way of doing it," he said.
Conditional licenses were later awarded to 15 applicants across the state. However, the Boston Globe reported in November that the licensing process had been delayed because media outlets and competing applicants had uncovered "questionable" information about some of the applicants.
No dispensaries have opened nearly two years after the law legalizing medical marijuana passed in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts was not the only New England state to release information about applicants for medical marijuana dispensaries.
As Rhode Island began awarding licenses to dispensaries in 2010, it held a public hearing on the 15 applicants for its three available licenses, the Associate Press reported that year.
A spokeswoman for the department of health told the AP then that the hearing was an opportunity for people to weigh in with opinions on the proposals.
Misconceptions about the operation of dispensaries and the medical marijuana law may be one of the reasons New Hampshire officials are reluctant to disclose too much information about the applicants, Simon said.
People might interfere with the process because they don't know how strictly regulated the dispensaries are and worry about marijuana being sold in their communities.
Simon said he said he can understand why the officials charged with choosing from the 14 applicants might want to keep the details to themselves.
"If I was on the selection committee reading the applications, I don't know that I'd want the public reading over my shoulder," Simon said.
Eric Borrin, the director of contracts and procurement for the N.H. Department of Health and Human Services, has overseen the regulatory process for dispensaries in the Granite State.
He said information about the applicants must remain confidential to the committee making the decision "in order to preserve the integrity of this application process and in accordance with state law."
"We wouldn't want to give the appearance of giving a potential applicant or other party an unfair advantage," he said.
New Hampshire's law was partially modeled after Vermont's, according to Lindsey Wells, the Marijuana Program Administrator for the Vermont Department of Public Safety.
"(In Vermont) the applications and all the supplemental information associated with the dispensaries was confidential," Wells said.
Keeping the information out of the public eye eliminated confusion for patients and Vermont residents who may think that all the applicants had received licenses, Wells said.
It also reduced the risk that landlords would hike their rents or that competitors would otherwise interfere with plans for dispensary applicants interested in leasing a specific space, she said.
If a potential dispensary operator knew it would need zoning changes to operate in the town, it would have had to approach the town's officials.
But if no zoning changes were needed, Wells said, no one other than state officials would know a town was the possible site of a dispensary.
"It wouldn't give the public a way to oppose a dispensary coming in," Wells said. "That's the way that the law is."
It's also the way the law works in New Hampshire.
Aside from saying saying they plan to prioritize granting a license to a dispensary in the southwestern part of the state, for example, state officials have given no indication whether one of the 14 applicants might be in Keene.
Some towns' boards of selectmen or zoning officials have revealed they received requests for zoning changes from companies applying for a license.
Without knowing whether a company was eyeing their town for one, some New Hampshire towns have preemptively adjusted their zoning laws to accommodate a dispensary.
In Laconia, the town Zoning Task Force updated its laws last month in case it was chosen.
City Manager Scott Myers said he doesn't know if any of the applications are in Laconia, but city officials wanted to make sure they were prepared.
"We would have no local authority to deny (a dispensary) being here," he said Thursday. "We wanted to be proactive and identify locations that we felt would be most suitable."
Simon said the Marijuana Policy Project has not taken a stance on whether states' dispensary application processes should be open or the information kept secret.
"There's probably some pros and probably some cons," he said.
Simon said his focus is on the ultimate result of the committee's choice rather than the process.
"I am withholding judgement," he said. "We just won't know until we see .... I'm far more concerned with having four quality applications being selected than with anything else."
Until state officials announce their selections, the process will stay under their control.
"This law requires them to choose four," he said. "I hope they're good."
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Sites of possible N.H. medical marijuana dispensaries remains a mystery - SentinelSource.com: The Keene Sentinel Local News
Author: Martha Shanahan
Contact: webmaster@keenesentinel.com
Photo Credit: None Found
Website: SentinelSource.com: Local Matters | News in Keene NH
