Who Benefited from Kentucky Medical Cannabis Licensing? Carpetbaggers.

As the licensing process has gone on for the inaugural distribution of Kentucky Cannabis Licenses, one group has been the biggest loser: Kentucky medical patients.

Although assurances were constant, confident, and loud from the legislature, the governor, and the Medical Cannabis program that the process would be fair, and only for those business owners and businesses based in Kentucky, the recent LPM investigation into the process has shown the results to be anything but.

This issue has been brought up constantly by advocates and local stakeholders, like Michael Adaire, or even myself in Frankfort with legislators while the legislation was being written and afterwards with the Kentucky Medical Cannabis Program. Concerns that very clearly have been ignored by each participant in the implementation of this program.

Now as the process is being executed, even SB-47 Author, the bill which legalized medical cannabis, and House Majority Leader Jason Nemes has called the process, “ Shady.” 

Governor Andy Beshear doubled down after the licensing process, endorsing the licensing process, including the over 500 applications of Dark Horse LLC out of Arkansas. More than 10% of total applications for Cultivation and Processing, stem from this single company. With the recent Dispensary Licenses, the same company won an additional four dispensary licenses, including three of the four total Dispensaries for the entire Pennyrile region. With these licenses, Dark Horse LLC is now a fully vertically integrated cannabis business operating in Kentucky, another outcome that bill writers and the Department said was impossible.

During the application period, Executive Director of the Kentucky Medical Cannabis Program, Sam Flynn said of the potential for Application Stacking, "...we would know about it, and just to be clear this has not come up,". Apparently it should have come up during the Department's background checks and judging of the applications.

Perhaps what the Governor, legislators, and the Kentucky Medical Cannabis Program mean when they say the licensing is being operated fairly, is that the actions being taken are legal, according to the rules they themselves wrote and are enforcing. 

The process has, without question, been corrupted, and manipulated to cut out Kentuckians. 

It has allowed companies to be awarded multiple licenses and retain multiple licenses, cornering the market into even fewer purchasing options for patients, killing competition, and beginning what many in the cannabis industry call the “race to the bottom”. With no competition, companies, especially out of state companies with no local stake, will look for the highest returns with the fewest obligations for safety, quality, and care to Kentucky medical patients. 

At the end of the day, the biggest losers are Kentucky medical patients, and local Kentuckians in the Cannabis space.

It raises the question: If Kentucky Medical Cannabis Patients can’t buy legal cannabis grown, processed, and cared for by Kentuckians, why should they trust, or buy legal Cannabis in Kentucky at all?