Nearly 900 Applications Delay Maryland's Med. Marijuana Program

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) -- The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission is swamped with applications to grow and dispense marijuana.

Pat Warren reports this means the commission won't meet its original timetable for awarding licenses.

That original timetable had dispensaries opening by the end of 2016, but now with this new workload, they're not sure when it will happen.

The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission is sorting through 882 applications; 102 of them for the 15 growers licenses. Eighty percent of the applicants want to run dispensaries.

"What we're ultimately talking about here is getting medicine to very sick patients and being able to provide relief to those patients," said Ethan Ruby, Peak Harvest Health.

Peak Harvest Health in Cumberland is one of the applicants.

The deluge of applications has thrown the process off schedule, but the state has been in no rush to get the system up and running.

"We were able to learn from mistakes from other states and not repeat those mistakes here in Maryland," said Darrell Carrington, Maryland Cannabis Industry Association. "So I think everyone is proud of the final product we have here in the state."

But getting there is frustrating for many, including Ethan Ruby, who knows firsthand the benefits marijuana provides.

"Yes, this to me is a very personal story. Fourteen years ago, I was a pedestrian in a crosswalk. A driver ran a redlight and hit another car in the intersection. They together careened into me and I've been paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair ever since," he said. "It has given me back a quality of life."

The Maryland law requires the medical marijuana program be self-sustaining and not taxpayer funded.

The applications alone have generated $1 million.