At least one company aiming to produce medical marijuana in New York has turned in an application to the Department of Health ahead of Friday’s deadline.
Empire State Health Solutions delivered two handcarts full of materials to the department’s headquarters in Albany Thursday. Six jam-packed binders and at least 12 other full cardboard boxes were left at the building.
The company is a product of Dr. Kyle Kingsley, who also owns and operates Minnesota Medical Solutions – a medical cannabis company already up and running in that state.
Empire State Health Solutions hopes to become one of five companies that will ultimately be approved by DOH to produce medical cannabis across the state.
They’ve already arranged to set up shop at the Tyron Technology Park in Fulton County should they win the bid.
The company seems confident in its chances – they’ve already posted a few jobs online including an Armed/Unarmed Security Agent per the job-seeking site Indeed, and a Head Horticulturist on Reematch.
The Department of Health is expected to approve five applications simultaneously sometime this year. The program is slated to be operational starting in January of next year.
Some advocates have called for an emergency medical marijuana program to be put in place in the meantime to help those suffering from extreme conditions.
At least one bill by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried would do that. That bill has been slowly creeping its way through committee – it was referred to the Rules Committee this week. It has bipartisan support in that chamber, where Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb and several of Gottfriend’s colleagues in the majority have signed on as co-sponsors.
The Senate’s a different story, where Senator Joe Griffo remains the lone sponsor of the bill. It was introduced at the end of April and hasn’t made it out of the Health Committee since.
Earlier this year, the sponsor of the original legislation legalizing medical marijuana said she was against any kind of expedited timeline for the program.
“Any deviation from that effort will delay the entire program,” Senator Diane Savino said during an interview.
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Empire State Health Solutions Delivers Their Application
