On Monday, the Kentucky Office of Medical Cannabis held a lottery drawing to see what 26 applicants for medical cannabis cultivators and processors would be awarded licenses—and three from Christian County were drawn.
The lottery was held in an effort for random fairness to see who would be awarded licenses first, to hopefully be ready by the time medical cannabis becomes legal in Kentucky on January 1, and those applicants selected in the license lottery will have 15 days to pay their license fee to Office of Medical Cannabis. Once that fee has been paid, the office will issue a license to that business.
In Christian County, under the cultivator tier 1 category, a license will go to Wong Investments, LLC and Joseph Serock and then for in the processor category, Jill’s Dispensary LLC was drawn. Kaldem Holdings in Muhlenberg County was drawn for a processor, and a cultivator tier was chosen from Hopkins County.
The Office of Medical Cannabis received 4,998 applications, of which 918 were cultivator and processor applicants. A separate license lottery for dispensaries will be announced at a later date.
Governor Andy Beshear says people will likely see progress start to ramp up as these locations try and have operations ready by the turn of the new year, but he’s doubtful there will be products ready to go day one.Â
The governor says they are expecting some legal challenges, but they felt a lottery system was the best, most fair method to award these first licenses.
To qualify for a medical cannabis card starting January 1, the holder must have a qualifying medical condition, which includes any type or form of cancer regardless of stage; chronic, severe, intractable or debilitating pain; epilepsy or any other intractable seizure disorder; multiple sclerosis, muscle spasms or spasticity; chronic nausea or cyclical vomiting syndrome that has proven resistant to other conventional medical treatments; and post-traumatic stress disorder.