The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) announced it will hold license application lotteries on June 5 for social equity and general applicants for three license types critical to establishing the supply chain in the state’s emerging adult-use market: cannabis cultivator, cannabis manufacturer, and cannabis mezzobusiness. The office will also hold a lottery for social equity applicants (SEAs) applying for a cannabis retailer license on June 5, preserving some of the advantages to SEAs envisioned in legislation. A lottery for general applicants for the cannabis retailer license—which includes a second chance for social equity applicants not selected in the first lottery—will follow this summer.
In order to qualify for the lottery, each application was rigorously reviewed to ensure consistency with statutory requirements and baseline standards of readiness. In reviewing applications, OCM assigned half of its reviewers to focus on the four license types limited in quantity by state statute, prioritizing those essential to building up the cannabis supply chain—cultivator, manufacturer, and mezzobusiness—followed closely by retailers.
The other half of reviewers focused on license types available in unlimited quantities, beginning with testing facilities – another type essential to the launch of the state’s cannabis market. They then turned to applications for microbusiness and medical cannabis combination businesses to support cultivation capacity and continuity of access to medicine for medical patients. Finally, reviewers will focus on cannabis wholesaler, transporter, and delivery service license types, which represent downstream market services. Applications for cannabis event organizers and lower-potency hemp edible manufacturers and retailers will follow later this year.
