There are 51,000 people registered in Minnesota's medical marijuana program, and there's growing concern that new rules for obtaining a license to grow and sell both recreational and medicinal marijuana could jeopardize the medicinal program. Maren Schroeder is a consultant and lobbyist for Blunt Strategies and has worked with state regulators as well as businesses in the medical marijuana program.
Schroeder told 5 Eyewitness News that current businesses that want to grow and sell products for recreational and medicinal use are facing economic challenges that could force them to pull out of the medicinal marijuana program.
"I think we're going to see the large operators forced to pull out," said Schroeder. "They would have to put up a pretty large risk in order to grow cannabis for medical cannabis because if it didn't sell as medical cannabis, it would have to be destroyed."
Schroeder said that for every single cannabis plant growers produce for recreational use, they have to produce two plants for the medical marijuana program. And, Schroder added, those same business licenses require growers to separate their recreational product from their medicinal product, which is not cost-effective.
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