State Lawmakers Can’t Decide on a Marijuana Cultivation Limit

Arkansas lawmakers are having a hard time deciding how many marijuana plants cultivators will be allowed at once. The state is only allowing 5 cultivators total, and the cost will not come cheap. The application fee to cultivate is $15,000. Once approved, there will be $100,000 licensing fee.

The profit that growers could make might be stunted by a plant limitation, according to Arkansas Matters. The way the law is written, the commission assigned must work with the Health Department to discuss and determine plant limits.

David Couch, the Marijuana amendment’s sponsor, said, “You don’t know exactly what the demand in the state of Arkansas is going to be. A lot of the oils, the bath salts, the lotions and stuff they use, it takes a lot more product to process it down to get what you need.”

Green Wave Advisors founder Matt Karnes said, “I think what’s important is for them to be mindful of the demand and the patients that are in need of this type of treatment. If you make it too restrictive, you may defeat the purpose of what the legislation is intended for, and that’s to provide an alternative method to people who suffer from these various qualifying conditions.”

Greenwave conducted a simple study to see how many potential patients there are in Arkansas. The number they came up with is 240,000, but that’s not saying every single one of them will obtain a medical marijuana card either.

Couch said, “I see the ability to the medical marijuana commission to set a limit as a safeguard to prevent an abundance of medical marijuana, not as a way to limit the amount of medical marijuana that’s available to patients right now.”

The Department of Health needs to determine how many potential patients there may be in the state before setting a limit. From here, the assigned commission will consider the maximum amount of 2.5-ounces per patient every 14 days and come up with an appropriate plant limit at that time.