Kentucky awards 26 medical marijuana business licenses in lottery

Kentucky regulators have awarded 26 medical marijuana licenses for cultivators and processors seeking to operate in the state’s impending industry.

The businesses chosen Monday in the Office of Medical Cannabis’ lottery must pay a licensing fee within 15 days or forfeit their ability to receive a license, the agency’s executive director, Sam Flynn, told the Louisville Courier Journal.

Kentucky’s MMJ program, which the governor signed into law in March 2023, is slated to begin Jan. 1 with 48 operational dispensaries.

The date for the lottery to select dispensary licensees will be announced Thursday.

Kentucky is using a lottery system – hosted by the Kentucky Lottery Corp. – because the number of applicants exceeded the number of licenses allotted per business type.

The state’s two largest counties, Jefferson and Fayette, will each be home to two dispensaries. The remaining counties will be awarded one dispensary apiece.

Kentucky previously awarded three business licenses for safety compliance facilities, with KCA Laboratories in Nicholasville receiving the state’s first MMJ business permit in September.

Such facilities don’t require a lottery because Kentucky did not establish a maximum cap for those licenses, according to the Courier Journal.

Kentucky’s medical marijuana law calls for four tiers of growers, but the state plans to initially award licenses for only Tiers I-III.

License tiers are determined by the amount of canopy space a business is allowed.

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