MN cannabis businesses upset that medical marijuana providers can sell recreational weed immediately

In a statement, Rep. Jess Hanson, DFL-Burnsville, disputed the idea that the agreements will give Rise and Green Goods a long-term advantage in the market and said support at the Capitol for “social equity owned and craft-style cannabis businesses remains intact as promised.”

Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, who has been a frequent critic of the rollout of recreational cannabis in the state, said he was unsurprised Rise and Green Goods were allowed to start selling recreational marijuana immediately, but he has sympathy for social equity applicants.

“Nobody gets hosed in this rollout more than the social equity applicants,” West said. “Now [they’re] exclusively disadvantaged because they’re paying leases on properties and waiting for inspections and they’re in a worse situation because they were trying to make them first.”

Vireo CEO Amber Shimpa and Dominic O’Brien, GTI’s senior vice president for revenue, both said their companies never suggested they would not renew its agreement with the state and exit the medical program.

In conversations with state officials, the companies pointed to the experiences of other states in which the medical cannabis market shrank dramatically after legalizing marijuana for recreational use, according to a lawmaker who asked not to be named. They suggested that without access to the recreational market, legalization would drive them out of business in Minnesota, the lawmaker said.

In New Brighton, Sarabear Kelly-Modlin and her husband, Philly, operate the Lucky Strains dispensary, which in August received a license from the OCM to sell recreational marijuana at one retail store. She said she was under the impression there would be a lag between when the medical cannabis companies were licensed and when they began selling recreational marijuana.