Cannabis is coming to Minnesota in a much bigger way, but the industry is still changing before it really begins. The Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) is asking for small changes, but they're answering big questions about unfair competition and even a possible collapse of the medical cannabis industry.
Minnesota is just a few months away from issuing retail licenses, but it's nowhere near ready to launch a self-contained cannabis market.
"Our demand study anticipates that we need about 1.5 to 2 million square feet of canopy to satisfy the Minnesota demand for cannabis products," said OCM interim director Eric Taubel. "At present, the state has somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 square feet."
That means growers in the state can provide about 3% of the demand. And it means the state needs to issue a lot of licenses for cultivation, probably more than 100 of them.
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