"Northeast Patients Group AKA The New Wellness Connection Dispensary operator stumbling, some say "

Sent: Monday, January 9, 2012 12:36 AM
Subject: [mmjnews2] Maine: Dispensary operator stumbling, some say

Dispensary operator stumbling, some say

But Wellness Connection says it has a big enough growing facility and gets few patient complaints.

Monday, January 9, 2012

By MICHAEL SHEPHERD
Kennebec Journal

http://www.pressherald.com/news/dispensary-operator-stumbling-some-say_2012-01-09.html

AUGUSTA - As Maine's largest medical marijuana nonprofit organization plans to open its dispensaries, the man originally tapped to run its growing operation says the organization does not have enough space to supply the product its patients need.

Meanwhile, leading state patient advocates say those who have signed up to receive medical marijuana from a Wellness Connection of Maine dispensary in Thomaston have run into difficulty setting up appointments and encountered stringent product limits that are well below the amounts allowed by state law.

"It's the continued modus operandi of Northeast (Patients Group) -- promise something you can't perform," said Paul McCarrier, referring to Wellness Connection by the name it used until recently. McCarrier answers the phone for Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine, the advocacy group for which he serves as a board member.

But in a prepared statement, state regulators of the program said they haven't heard patient complaints and they are not concerned with the size of the Thomaston facility.

And Wellness Connection says it has sufficient space. The group did confirm, though, that it is placing limits on product because it's a fledgling operation.

Matthew Hawes, a Holden native who lives in northern California, was scheduled to be the supervisor of all aspects of the cultivation program under applications that Wellness Connection won in 2010 for four dispensary licenses.

According to minutes from an April 2010 Augusta Planning Board meeting, Hawes said the organization would need a 10,000- to 20,000-square-foot building to grow enough marijuana for the four dispensaries. And Wellness Connection has previously said the Thomaston dispensary, which has been open since September, would be the initial cultivation base.

But Wellness Connection only occupies about 3,300 square feet of a 6,600-square-foot building on New County Road, Thomaston assessor's agent Dave Martucci said last week.

Hawes stopped working with Wellness Connection in early 2011. Now, as it prepares in the coming months to open three dispensaries -- in Hallowell, Portland and Brewer -- he says the Thomaston location was never meant for large-scale growing and is insufficient for supplying the number of anticipated patients.

According to Hawes, a typical grower could expect a yield of about 300 pounds of marijuana annually in a location such as the Thomaston facility. He said the maximum yield for that space would be 500 pounds annually, with an elite grower and high-yield, short-flowering strains.

"I think that it's inadequate," Hawes said of the Thomaston site. "If demand is still estimated to be anywhere near what we were predicting, then it's not suitable even to start."

In a prepared statement, John Martins, spokesman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, whose Division of Licensing and Regulatory Services oversees the state's medical marijuana program, said the state has no concern about the facility's size.

Wellness Connection spokeswoman Jane Lane denied Hawes' claim that there isn't enough space there.

"While the Wellness Connection of Maine does not comment on our growing facilities, I can say that we have adequate space to meet projected patient need," Lane said.

EARLY PLANS

Hawes said he knows the capabilities of the Thomaston site.

He said he found the facility through a Rockland Realtor and held initial meetings with Thomaston Code Enforcement Officer Peter Surek. The site wasn't intended to be anything other than a dispensary, where patients could buy needed product and accessories.

Hawes said the first site the group considered for cultivation was a warehouse off Interstate 95 in Hermon, owned by the Dysart family.

In summer 2010, however, the town of Hermon placed a moratorium on such facilities until it could enact regulations. So Wellness Connection focused instead on growing in Portland, he said.

"They just kind of went away," said Ron Harriman, Hermon's economic development director.

Wellness Connection wanted to lease a larger space than initially needed and then grow into the site as patient rolls expanded, Hawes said. Harriman said the group would have had 30,000 square feet in the Hermon warehouse it was considering.

Hawes estimated Wellness Connection would need 8,000 square feet just to get started. Within two to three years, he said it planned to fill a 15,000- to 20,000-square-foot space.

"We thought that it was fiscally irresponsible to move into a location that we knew we were going to have to expand out of within a few years," he said. "We were going big at the start."

By the time Hawes stopped working with Wellness Connection in early 2011, he said the group hadn't secured financing to finalize a lease in Portland.

LEGAL ISSUES

Hawes said he had been voted by Wellness Connection's board of directors to be the company's general manager, with an eye on being head of cultivation.

In February, he said Wellness Connection cut off contact with him, leaving him wondering for weeks if he was still working there.

"They just stopped talking to me. They stopped returning my calls and emails," Hawes said. "They just completely ignored me."

According to Martins, Wellness Connection notified the state that Hawes was no longer affiliated with the organization on May 31.

That month, Becky DeKeuster quit her job as New England expansion director for Berkeley Patients Group, the California-based former financial backer of Wellness Connection, and became Wellness Connection's executive director in June 2010. She resigned from Berkeley one day after signing a $2 million, never-finalized preliminary financing agreement between Wellness Connection and retired NBA basketball player Cuttino Mobley.

That agreement led to Berkeley suing Wellness Connection on July 6 for repayment of $632,195 in loans. The suit also asked that the court order DeKeuster, of Augusta, to end her association with Wellness Connection.

Martins said Chad Emper now runs cultivation for Wellness Connection. A fall 2009 issue of Universitas, a magazine at Saint Louis University in Missouri, said DeKeuster, an alumna, married Emper that March.

CALLS NOT RETURNED

McCarrier, the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine board member, said that during the past few months, medical marijuana patients who have signed up for product at Wellness Connection's Thomaston dispensary have been disappointed.

They've encountered limits on product ranging from one-eighth of an ounce weekly to one-fourth of an ounce weekly. By state law, patients with medical conditions qualifying for the medical marijuana program are allowed 2.5 ounces every two weeks, or 1.25 ounces per week.

Martins, the DHHS spokesman, said the state hasn't heard those complaints.

Lane, the Wellness Connection spokeswoman, confirmed there are limits on product, but in a statement she framed it as a planned phase-in as the group ramps up product and patient count.

"That is the case right now at this new clinic. We have said from the start that a new dispensary needs to build up their inventory of product based on patient caseload and need," she said. "It will take some time to incrementally increase our inventory, but we have begun the process and we expect this situation will soon be resolved."

Charles Wynott, executive director of the Westbrook-based Maine Medical Marijuana Patients Center, tells similar stories of his interactions with Wellness Connection. Wynott said he has left multiple messages on the group's main phone line.

"I have called them and said, 'This is Charlie. I have no money. I need help,' and I didn't even get a courtesy call," he said. "There's nobody on the other side of the phone."

Wynott also said the average Maine caregiver sells marijuana to patients for about $250 per ounce. In numbers submitted to the state in July, Wellness Connection said it would sell product for $340 per ounce at its dispensaries.

In Portland, where DeKeuster has said a Congress Street dispensary could open by February, Wellness Connection is planning to have a "welcoming community center," where patients can network with each other over free tea and coffee.

"Good luck with that," Wynott said of the marijuana pricing. "They better be serving some good coffee."

Kennebec Journal Staff Writer Michael Shepherd can be contacted at 621-5632 or at:

mshepherd@mainetoday.com

http://www.pressherald.com/news/dispensary-operator-stumbling-some-say_2012-01-09.html

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