New Cannabis Growers Selected

Health Department says it has picked 12 nonprofits for new medical cannabis licenses, including one in Santa Fe

By Julie Ann Grimm

Santa Fe is home to one of a dozen new medical marijuana businesses approved by the state today.

But who is running it and where it will set up shop are unknown. The New Mexico Department of Health remained tight-lipped about the identity of licensed non-profit producers in its Medical Cannabis Program when it announced that 12 new licenses have been approved, providing just the counties in which they are located.

Despite earlier indications that department regulators were looking to help increase supply for patients in rural reaches of the state, eight of the new licenses are for nonprofits in Bernalillo County. Chaves, Taos and Valencia counties are each slated for one new producer.

In August, the department narrowed a list of applicants from 86 to 17, noting that the short list represented the top 20 percent of total applications submitted. A number of Northern New Mexico applicants got knocked out during that round. A four-member scoring committee recommended to Ward "that she review the 17 highest scoring applications, and that she make her selection from that pool. She adopted that recommendation," the release says.

Up next, the department plans to conduct site visits with selected applicants. Officials also say they're working on a rule change that would make the names of license holders public. "The DOH anticipates publication of the proposed rule changes, and conducting a public hearing sometime this fall," the release says.

If all the selected applicants complete the process, it would bring the total number of license holders to 35, serving 17,537 patients in the program.


Santa Fe Reporter

Letters to the Editor

Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specific articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity.

We also welcome you to follow SFR on social media (on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and comment there. You can also email specific staff members from our contact page.