Commission limits Nebraska medical cannabis products, licenses

Nebraska medical cannabis patient advocates are up in arms after a state commission voted to severely restrict cannabis products that will be available as well as the number of cultivators and dispensaries allowed in the state.

Regulations adopted by the Nebraska Medical Cannabis Commission on Tuesday limit the state to no more than 12 dispensaries and four cultivators, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

And they’ll be forbidden from selling cannabis flower or edibles.

The rules aren’t final until they’re signed by Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican who opposes MMJ.

The commission is under a deadline to release rules that will allow it to approve the first business license applications by Oct. 1.

But advocates say commissioners’ decision to quickly approve a drastically different version of regulations “didn’t just ignore” the will of the voters, said Crista Eggers, the executive director of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana.

“They shredded it,” she told the Nebraska Examiner.

“By approving rules that pile on new barriers and unlawfully restrict forms of cannabis, they are dismantling what the people demanded at the ballot box,” Eggers said.

Nebraska medical marijuana business opportunities limited

The new regulations approved by the commission limit the number of business licenses to:

• Four cultivators.
• Four product manufacturers.
• 12 dispensaries.

Both the ballot initiatives approved last fall and earlier emergency regulations approved in the summer put no limit on cultivators and manufacturers, the Examiner reported.

Under the new rules, cannabis edibles are banned, as are smokeable and vaporizable cannabis.

Cannabis may be consumed by “oral tablets, capsules or tinctures, as well as through gels, oils, creams or other topicals,” according to the Journal Star.

Cannabis patients are also forbidden from obtaining or possessing the raw cannabis plant – a point that also contradicts voter-approved Initiative 437.

Nebraska voters overwhelmingly supported medical marijuana legalization last November.

But since then, efforts to launch an MMJ program have been beset by lawsuits and opposition from top state elected officials.

An expanded MMJ regulatory bill failed in the state Legislature this past spring in part because of opposition from Pillen, state Attorney General Mike Hilgers and U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, all of whom are Republicans, the Examiner reported.