Cultivator: Ciccone's daughter's stake in business a mere 2%

Carla Ciccone owns only 2% of a medical-marijuana cultivation business that could benefit from a bill that her father, Sen. Frank A. Ciccone III, is pushing, says one of the company’s chief partners.

John Battista, of Cranston-based OP Pharma LLC, wanted to set the record straight Monday and douse any speculation that the senator was using his office to benefit a family member or that OP Pharma was trying to buy influence with Carla Ciccone’s investment.

“I don’t think I’m influencing anybody with [her] 2%,” said Battista, 66.

“I could have gone to a lot of other people if I was going to look to buy influence,” he joked. “This is Rhode Island.”

On Saturday, The Providence Journal reported that Ciccone, chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, was sponsoring a bill to add three medical marijuana dispensaries in the state — doubling the number of places that could buy marijuana products from the state’s 46 licensed cultivators, including OP Pharma.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Ciccone said his bill was necessary because there aren’t enough places now for those cultivators to do business. Ciccone never mentioned that his daughter owns an interest in one such cultivating business.

Battista declined Monday to break down the ownership interests of all 14 people listed in filing papers as owners of OP Pharma.

That information is available to state business regulators but is not considered public, the state Department of Business Regulation has said in the past.

Battista said that even if Carla Ciccone “had nothing to do with us, we’d still be talking to Frank [Ciccone]” because the legislation is important to all the 46 licensed cultivators, many of whom, like Battista, have raised more than $1 million to get their businesses up and running.

Rhode Island began licensing cultivators in 2017 for its medical marijuana program to provide a more regulated and safe supply of the drug to its three existing dispensaries — and to reduce home-growing by patients and their caregivers whose product often found its way to the black market.

State regulators and Gov. Gina Raimondo say more dispensaries are needed to improve price competition and medicine accessibility — particularly with patients in South County and the northern part of the state.

But the three existing three dispensaries have successfully lobbied lawmakers to defeat any additional competition.

This year, however, the Rhode Island Cannabis Association, a group of cultivators and related businesses, has gotten some Senate leaders to listen. They say expanding the number of dispensaries would be beneficial not just to the state’s 18,200 patients but to the thousands of people now employed in the trade of growing marijuana indoors.

In April the association, now including 13 cultivators and 3 other business, held an informational meeting at a Warwick coffee shop with Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, Ciccone and others.

And last month Battista and Antonio Barone, one of the founding members of the association, hosted a fundraiser for the “Senate Leadership PAC” at Cucina Rustica, a Cranston restaurant, with a suggested donation of $150 per person.

“In any kind of industry or business that goes on,” said Battista, “how else are you going to get to talk to anybody or get them to come out and hear what you have to say, your concerns? And then get advice back on what you need to do — to reach out to the House side, reach out to your local senators. What else are you supposed to do?”

There is no companion bill in the House to Ciccone’s Senate bill. But Battista and Barone said they are confident the idea of adding three retail-only dispensaries will be included in the final budget that lawmakers pass.

— tmooney@providencejournal.com

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