The Maryland Cannabis Administration is seeking a contractor to staff a new “Cannabis Care Line,” a free telephone service meant to give medical cannabis patients access to professional guidance on product selection, contraindications, and other health-related questions.
MCA released the request for proposals on June 24, setting up a nine-month pilot program that could grow into a longer-term fixture of the state’s medical cannabis program. Questions from prospective offerors are due July 9, and proposals are due July 16, according to the solicitation. The state expects the selected contractor to be ready to launch within four to six weeks of the contract award, with a base period running from roughly September 2026 through May 2027 and a nine-month option period that could extend the program into 2028.
The contract is capped at $200,000 total, covering both the base and option periods, and is designated a small business reserve procurement, meaning only businesses certified through the state’s small business program are eligible for the award.
The RFP frames the Care Line as a response to a steady decline in medical cannabis patient registrations since Maryland’s adult-use market opened in mid-2023. Active patient certifications peaked at roughly 160,000 in 2022 and had fallen below 90,000 by the end of 2025, according to MCA data cited in the solicitation.
Despite that decline, the agency says demand for clinical guidance remains high. In MCA’s 2024 patient survey, 84% of respondents said they would use a free cannabis helpline for guidance on topics like product selection for qualifying conditions, contraindications, and side effects. A majority of respondents in the 2025 survey wave, 77%, agreed the service would improve the medical program, and 40% called it a “great improvement.”
The RFP also notes that most patients see their certifying provider only once a year and rarely consult a dispensary’s Clinical Director, leaving many to rely on budtenders who typically lack medical training. MCA argues the Care Line could help close that gap — and could also extend clinical access to patients of Maryland’s newer social equity dispensaries, which aren’t required to have a Clinical Director on staff for their first two years of operation
Under the RFP, the selected offeror must independently recruit, hire, and train call center staff, all of whom must meet Maryland’s clinical staffing requirements under COMAR 14.17.04.07 — physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, licensed pharmacists, or registered nurses with documented cannabis training, among other qualifying credentials. Notably, Care Line staff are barred from recommending or endorsing any specific product brand.
The state is asking for a minimum of 12 hours of weekly coverage, proposed around peak dispensary shopping times — Wednesday through Friday afternoons and Saturday midday, based on MCA’s analysis of patient transaction data. The contractor will also need to build out a triage plan capable of handling concurrent calls with no more than a 15-minute wait or callback window, plus a standard operating procedure covering after-hours calls, screening and referral for cannabis use disorder, and contingency plans for outages.
The winning bidder will integrate with MCA’s existing Lumen/Genesys call center infrastructure and will be required to report call volume, caller type, and topic data to the agency at least monthly.
MCA describes the effort explicitly as a pilot: the agency says it wants to use the nine-month base period to learn about call volume, timing, and the kinds of questions patients are asking before deciding whether — and how — to scale the service. Contract applications closed late July.
