FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky held its first lottery to award 26 businesses with a license to grow and process medical marijuana in the state.
The state's Medical Cannabis Program said it received nearly 5,000 medical cannabis business licenses during the two-month application period this summer. The vast majority of applications were for dispensaries, with more than 4,000 applicants.
Due to the high volume of applicants, Gov. Andy Beshear said the fairest way to choose which businesses get a license is randomly through a lottery.
Monday's lottery was to announce which businesses would get one of the 16 cultivation licenses and 10 processing licenses.
The drawing, conducted with the help of the Kentucky Lottery, was methodically ran to ensure security throughout the process. Businesses were assigned a number and a random number generator chose the winning applicants.
“We wanted to make sure that this process was fair for everybody who applied, but ultimately transparency was at the core of the way we put this program together,” Kentucky Medical Cannabis Director Sam Flynn said.
Flynn said of the 918 cultivator and processor applicants, only 85% were approved to be entered into the lottery.
"Under the law, the medical cannabis in our program has to be cultivated, processed, tested and dispensed by licensed business here in the commonwealth,” Beshear said Monday. "Every winner of today’s drawing will be a Kentucky business, employing Kentuckians, moving our economy and our healthcare forward."
Applicants selected in the lottery will have 15 days to pay their license fee. If they don't pay the fee, Flynn said the business could forfeit their license.
Once that fee has been paid, the Office of Medical Cannabis will issue a license to that business.
Officials are expected to announce a lottery drawing date for the 48 available dispensary licenses on Thursday.
Back in September, Kentucky awarded its first cannabis business license to a laboratory in Nicholasville to test products before being offered to patients. Only residents with a specific medical conditions will have access to medical marijuana.
Beshear believes medical marijuana may not be available for Kentuckians on Jan. 1, 2025 as originally intended.
"There's a possibility," he explained. "Given that people can bring in some product under certain requirements that have been set up, but we do have all the inspections that will come with the dispensaries, and so I think it will be a challenge."
He said he intends to keep his executive order, allowing Kentuckians with those specific medical conditions to have small amounts of marijuana, active while the program initially begins.
Here's which cannabis business won a license on Oct. 28:
Processors
- 1248 KYP LLC - Jefferson County
- Kaldem Holdings - Muhlenberg County
- Limestone Processing - Fayette County
- Hilltop Healing Investco - Warren County
- Bijal Kentucky LLC - Boyd County
- AJ Alchemy Labs LLC - Barren County
- Jill's Dispensary LLC - Christian County
- One Leaf Technologies LLC - Bullitt County
- Ice House Processing LLC - Fulton County
Cultivators - Tier 1
- L&O Legacies - Boyd County
- Synapse Remedies LLC - Jefferson County
- CW Bluegrass LLC - Daviess County
- Popp Cultivation LLC - Bracken County
- Arizona Bay Investments LLC - Lincoln County
- Wong Investments LLC - Christian County
- Joseph Serock - Christian County
- Elevated Essence LLC - Bullitt County
- Slaughter Branch LLC - Hopkins County
- Goeing Blue LLC - Fayette County
Cultivators - Tier 2
- NG Health LLC - Fayette County
- Armory Kentucky LLC - Estill County
- JMOKY LLC - Warren County
- Canopy Capital LLC - Grant County
Cultivators - Tier 3
- Natural State Green Grass CannaCo LLC - Warren County
- KSYKAPP LLC - Barren County
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