River Valley Relief Cultivation will open in Fort Smith on Oct. 1

On October 1, the opening of River Valley Relief Cultivation on Old Greenwood Road will bring the River Valley its first medical marijuana facility.

Scott Hardin, director of communications for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, said Amendment 8, passed by voters in 2016 to legalize medical marijuana, limits the number of breeders in the state to eight. The state has reached its limit of eight producers.

Fort Smith was approved for growing cannabis in 2020 along with Grady and Hot Springs. They join Pine Bluff, Cotton Plant, Newport, Berryville, and White Hall, which were approved in 2018.

Pharmacies in the state

Amendment 8 limits the number of pharmacies in the state to 40. The state has issued 38 licenses that allow pharmacies to sell medical marijuana. The state is divided into eight zones, and each zone can have up to five pharmacies.

The River Valley falls into Zone 4, which has reached the border of five dispensaries – Fort Cannabis Co. (Fort Smith), Enlightened Cannabis for People Clarksville (Clarksville), 420 Dispensary (Russellville), Enlightened Cannabis for People Morrilton and Morrilton 3J Investments moving out of Lamar. 3J has requested to open in Van Buren, which requires approval from Van Buren City Council and the Medical Marijuana Commission.

Despite government legalization, there are concerns that medical marijuana may not be accessible due to its cost.

Kristy Floyd, operations manager for River Valley Relief Cultivation, said increasing supply alone will not solve the affordability problem. She explained that one of the affordability challenges is that insurance companies don’t cover medical marijuana because it’s illegal at the federal level.

To increase affordability, River Valley Relief Cultivation will offer the Compassionate Care Program to help patients who cannot afford medical marijuana. Floyd said the details of the program were still being worked out.

According to Weedmaps, the average cost of a gram of weed in Arkansas is $ 15. It costs around $ 10 to $ 20 a gram in Missouri, and Missouri was the only state bordering Arkansas where a price index for cannabis was available. The average price in Colorado is $ 12 and Washington is $ 10. Colorado and Washington were two of the first states to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana.

Taxation of cannabis

Arkansas has 79,019 residents with medical marijuana cards, and the River Valley has a total of 8,514 medical marijuana cards.

Medical marijuana cards by counties in the River Valley:

• Logan County – 418
• Sebastian District – 2,848
• Crawford County – 1,620
• Franklin County – 344
• Johnson County – 644
• Pope County – 1,357
• Conway County – 908
• Yell County – 375

In addition to the 6.5% sales tax, Arkansans pay a legislative privilege tax of 4% on cannabis purchases.

Preferential tax is paid by patients when they buy from a pharmacy and for pharmacies that buy from producers. However, pharmacies are exempt from paying 6.5% state sales tax when buying cannabis from breeders.

As of 2019, the state has collected $ 47 million – of which $ 23 million in the last nine months – in sales tax from the £ 60,000 products sold. Every month the state collects about $ 3 million in tax revenue from cannabis sales.

The income from the privilege tax goes to the National Cancer Institute of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock and the Medical Marijuana Commission.

Hardin said data on how much sales tax is generated by region is not available. The Tax Procedure Act keeps the amount of sales tax generated by companies secret, which means that regional data is not available. The state can only provide the entire sales tax revenue collected by the state from cannabis.

Fort Cannabis Co. has sold 2,554.48 pounds of cannabis since it opened on December 18, 2019. In August the pharmacy sold £ 116.32. Nearly 4,300 pounds of medical marijuana were sold in Zone 4, which is the River Valley.

According to Statista, the United States will generate about $ 23 billion in taxes from legal cannabis sales by 2025.

Arkansas is one of 36 states that have legalized medical marijuana.

Cultivation in the river valley

River Valley Relief Cultivation, which opens October 1st, will use 25,000 square feet of indoor cannabis growing space. Each of the seven cultivation rooms will have 2,000 plants.

An economic study conducted by the Arkansas Cannabis Industry Association found that the River Valley Relief Cultivation, which will be located on Old Greenwood Road, could generate $ 80 million and 80-100 jobs to the local economy over the next four years.

On its website, the company said it will also help educate patients about opioids and study the effects of medical marijuana on containing the opioid epidemic.

Floyd said 90% of the water the facility will use to grow the plants will be created by converting moisture in the facility into water used by hospitals. Floyd said this restricts the amount of water from the city the facility uses.

The facility will include a C1D1 shelter, a room used for handling flammable liquids and gases to carry out the plant extraction process.