The East Coast medical cannabis market: Q&A with Ted Rebholz of Temescal Wellness

By Omar Sacirbey

Ted Rebholz was offered a high-level position atHarborside Health Center, but he turned it down to stay with a tech firm that was later sold to Cisco Systems.

Crossing paths with Harborside piqued Rebholzs interest in the cannabis industry, paving the way for him to start a licensed MMJ business inNew Hampshire.

Rebholzs company, Temescal Wellness, owns two of New Hampshires four state-allotted dispensaries.

Rebholz who once toyed with the idea of working in the public sector for an institution like the World Bank is expanding his medical cannabis operations along the East Coast. Hes won preliminary grower and processor licenses in Maryland, and he is well along the way to getting final dispensary licenses in Massachusetts.

How did you get into the cannabis industry?

That interaction with Harborside definitely opened my eyes to the fact that companies in the legal cannabis industry, if they do their job well, provide significant societal impact by providing a plant-based alternative therapy.

Every single day, if we do our jobs as legal cannabis companies, if we do it transparently, and with integrity, and with the public and the patients interests in mind, we are turning back the stigma.

How would you describe the New Hampshire market so far?

The biggest frustration for patients and for the program is the backlog of patient applications. The New Hampshire statute requires the state to respond to patients within 20 days, but its taking double that. We knew this was going to be a road bump a year ago, and brought this to the states attention and offered to pay to help improve patient accessibility.

Its odd that its entirely paper-based, and that patients can only submit their photos on CD-ROM. I cant remember the last time my laptop had a CD-ROM.

They acknowledged that other jurisdictions have easier ways of registering patients, but they havent acted.

Whats the fix for that problem?

There needs to be an online portal where patients can provide all of the information that the state requires. There doesnt need to be a change in the amount of information provided by patients, it just needs to be done using technology that we all use day in and day out.

Thats not only going to improve patient accessibility, its also going to improve the efficiency of the government agency and make life easier for them. This would be a clear improvement and our offer to provide resources to help the state improve that still stands.

Do you think the patient pool in New Hampshire is sufficient enough to sustain dispensaries?

I think that even in its form today that its a very sustainable program. But one issue is that to become a qualifying patient you have to have both a condition and symptom. Initially, when the law was drafted, it was either-or. But lawmakers changed that because of lobbying by the state medical association. Lawmakers need to change that back.Some lawmakers are aware that would improve patient accessibility.

The state also sees that we need to expand the list of conditions. Theyve added colitis already, but unfortunately Gov. Maggie Hassan said no to post-traumatic stress disorder.

In Maryland, how have all the delays affected your business?

Theres been a lot of discussion about the process of selection. And thats no surprise ...