Oct. 5—Nearly 5,000 medical cannabis business license applications have been submitted to Kentucky's Office of Medical Cannabis, with 88% of them arriving in the last four days of the licensing period, Gov. Andy Beshear recently announced.
The deadline to submit an application was Aug. 31.
"Today, the results are clear," Beshear said. "There is incredible, if not overwhelming interest, especially among Kentuckians. That's proof that the program is going to meet its goals. 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 then getting up and running."
Among the 4,998 applications, there were 4,076 dispensary applications, 584 cultivator applications, 333 processor applications and five safety compliance facility applications.
Beshear said the staff to review these applications had already been increased from nine to 29 people and that they would be adding an additional 20 employees to process the applications.
"Despite the last-minute influx of applications, the Office of Medical Cannabis is currently reviewing these applications, and we remain on track to issue these licenses in 2024," he said.
Asked about the risk of "application stacking," when companies submit multiple applications under different names to increase their chances of being picked in the lottery, Beshear said the system has been set up to prevent these types of harms.