LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Gov. Andy Beshear announced during his Team Kentucky update on Thursday the Kentucky Medical Marijuana Program received 4,998 applications for licenses from prospective medical cannabis businesses.
Last year, Beshear signed an executive order legalizing medical marijuana in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. On July 1 this year, the online portal opened to apply for a medical cannabis business license. The application period closed last weekend.
The vast majority of the 4,998 applications were for medical cannabis dispensary licenses. Beshear said the program received 4,076 dispensary applications.
"Today the results are clear: there is incredible, if not overwhelming interest, especially among Kentuckians. That's proof that the program is going to meet its goals," Beshear said.
The governor said the only concern at the moment is handling the massive amount of license applications. Beshear said the program was hit by a "big flood" of applications in the last few days of the application period.
"We are just going to have some challenges getting through those total number of applications, doing it right, ensuring that the process is fair, getting through the lotteries and getting up and running," Beshear said.
Despite the last-minute influx of applications, Beshear says the Office of Medical Cannabis is reviewing each application and they are on track to begin issuing licenses this year.
The state is holding a lottery in October to select which business licenses will be granted. Officials are expected to announce the lottery dates soon, however Beshear revealed the lottery for cultivators and processors will be done before the dispensary lottery.
If you do the math, the Commonwealth has collected a total of $27,777,000 in non-refundable application fees for medical marijuana business licenses. Dispensary application fees alone contributed over $20 million.
With the influx of dispensary applications, and just 48 dispensary licenses statewide, each dispensary application has just a 1% shot of being selected.
Here's a breakdown of how many applications were received for each classification:
- Tier I Cultivator: 239
- Tier II Cultivator: 190
- Tier III Cultivator: 155
- Processor: 333
- Dispensary: 4,076
- Safety Compliance Facility: 5
Beshear said once the program is up and running and dispensaries are active across the Commonwealth, he intends to rescind the executive order which decriminalized possessing marijuana in Kentucky if certain conditions were met. He said he promised the Kentucky legislature he would rescind the order once a real medical marijuana program was in effect.
"We're going to get it right. It's going to take a lot of work to get it right, but we are going to get it right," Beshear said.