WM Medical marijuana dispensary to reopen under new management

Body and Mind back un business, new name forthcoming

By Ralph Hardin

news@theeveningtimes.com

AWest Memphis medical marijuana dispensary has reopened, now under new management. Body and Mind dispensary, one of three medical marijuana dispensaries in West Memphis, will also soon be getting a new name.

Body and Mind Dispensary reopened for business last week after a management transition left the West Memphis medical marijuana outlet closed for several days in March.

Robert deBin, the CEO of White Hall cultivator Natural State Medicinals, is leading the new management group that reopened the store this week, a spokesman said.

The store will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, except holidays, spokesman Bailey Moll said.

The dispensary was previously operated by a company, also called Body and Mind, that operates a chain of dispensaries in California, Ohio and Illinois. The company ceased its operations at the West Memphis store on March 15, deBin said.

DeBin’s group took over the following day and reopened the store Wednesday for its first full day of operations since the shutdown.

Medical Marijuana Commission spokesman Scott Hardin confirmed a report that the previous management group had cut down all of the cannabis plants that were growing at the store. Dispensaries are allowed to grow up to 50 mature plants.

Moll said the dispensary will inform the commission that it will be changing its name to Comprehensive Care Group.

Such changes do not require commissioners’ approval.

The dispensary is owned by Comprehensive Care Group, which is made up of the estate of Garry Glasco (50%), Donald J. Marshall (40%) and Valecia Ootsey-Walker (10%). Earlier this month, the Medical Marijuana Commission considered the dispensary’s request to transfer a portion of the ownership to Big Stone Farms AR 1 LLC. That limited liability company would have been owned by Stephen “Trip” Hoffman of Henderson, Nevada, and Matt Trulove, an owner of Berryville cultivator Osage Creek Cultivation, according to commission documents.

The commission voted to table the matter for a month so members would have more time to read documents they said they had received on the day of the meeting. Commissioners were not swayed when dispensary officials told them a delay could result in the closure of the store, since the owners and management were facing a March 15 deadline to strike a deal.

Hardin said the ownership transfer involved a loan that would be transferred into equity in the business rather than being paid off in cash.

Further complicating the matter is a letter that Fayetteville attorney Rayburn Green, representing Trulove, sent to the state this month. Green said the parties signed a new operating agreement last year after Big Stone Farms AR 1 LLC filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County circuit court against Comprehensive Care Group and two of its owners. The new agreement does not have a deadline of “March or any other date” for the transfer of ownership to be executed, Green wrote.

The commission will meet again on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. Body and Mind appears on the agenda to request the same change of ownership it requested last month, Hardin said.

File photo