Missouri Starts Revoking Licenses of Delayed Medical Cannabis Businesses

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has started to revoke business licenses from some medical cannabis operators who failed to open their business on time, the Springfield News-Leader reports.

Under Missouri law, cannabis businesses are required to open within a year of their license approval. Last month, 260 of the state’s 370 licensees were granted extensions for their one-year operating deadline.

The names of 29 now-defunct medical cannabis companies were first reported by Grow Now after the state accidentally released the list in a dump of other documents in late January. Most of the revoked licenses were for cannabis transportation operations, labs, and processors, and the licenses were largely yanked due to their failure to meet their “commencement inspection” deadlines, according to the News-Leader.

Additionally, five licenses recently reclaimed by the state were voluntarily forfeited after the facilities were advised about, “what may or may not be considered favorably in any requests for extension of a facility’s operational deadline,” the report said.

“Revocations for failure to pass a commencement inspection within the required timeframe may yet be issued for any of the facilities that have received an extension of the original deadline or whose extension requests are still pending.” — A Missouri spokesperson, via the News-Leader

Daniel Moore, attorney and owner of the now-defunct licensee 303 Cannabis, called the licensing process a “boondoggle” and said he believes there are around 800 denied licensees awaiting their appeal with the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission.

Missouri received over 2,000 applications for the state’s 370 medical cannabis business licenses. 78 commercial licenses have been granted and 62 are in the final stages of approval. Industry representatives attribute the business delays and slow licensing process to complications from the coronavirus pandemic and the cannabis industry’s lack of banking access.