“I think you need to get it right but I think timeliness is critical.”
By Peter Callaghan, MinnPost
Minnesota state cannabis regulators think a key to getting the state’s program up and running by next spring is a lottery.
Not THE lottery, as in the Minnesota state lottery. But a similarly random method for deciding which applicants receive the first licenses to open stores, build large grow operations or create the combination enterprises known as cannabis microbusinesses and cannabis mezzobusinesses.
While the method in current law—deciding which applicants win licenses based on how many points they accumulate—might be just as fast, it is also more likely to attract lawsuits that will slow the process, regulators say. Litigation in other states, often over the preference given to what are defined as social equity applicants, has delayed the opening of stores and other cannabis businesses.
So a lottery, as well as other changes in the 2023 recreational marijuana law, can be seen as a lawsuit repellant.
“What we have seen, particularly when it comes to how you determine social equity status, is that a point system has been subject to legal challenge,” said interim Office of Cannabis Management director Charlene Briner in
Read full article on Marijuana Moment
