Adult-use marijuana stores in Minnesota have their permits and are ready to open for business – except they still don’t have any cannabis to sell.
Critics say the delay in launching Minnesota’s adult-use marijuana market – the second state to start sales in 2025, whenever stores receive product from cultivators – was predictable and avoidable.
Minnesota legalized adult-use marijuana in 2023. Since then, progress to license businesses and launch legal cannabis sales has been slow.
State marijuana regulators awarded the state’s first permit to a cultivator in late June. Retailers and other license types received permits around the same time.
But because it can take as roughly 90 days for a cannabis harvest to be ready for sale from seed to sale, licensed and permitted cannabis stores like Jen Swanson’s Fridley Dispensary have nothing to put on their shelves, as Fox affiliate KMSP reported.
Critics warned this could happen, KMSP noted.
Minnesota did not license marijuana cultivators first
More than a year ago, advocates warned state policymakers to license cultivators first to avoid such a supply-chain snafu.
“What we need in order to have a safe and regulated market is for cultivation to start as soon as possible because you cannot have a retail store unless you have product to sell,” Republican state Rep. Nolan West said in April 2024, according to KMSP.
Minnesota-grown cannabis is available from Native American tribes.
The White Earth Band of Chippewa is the only tribe with a compact with the state Office of Cannabis Management allowing it to sell to state-licensed stores.
Tribal leaders are still working out how to sell to non-tribal stores, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
And the tribal cultivators must service their own stores first, Zach Wilson, CEO of Waabigwan Mashkiki, told the newspaper.
“Over-promise and under-deliver is the worst thing you can do as a business,” he said. “We’re trying to be as transparent and honest as we can about our supply and what we can and cannot do.”
Minnesota marijuana cultivation bottleneck causing problems
As a result, store owners like Swanson say they are losing money fast.
“By the time we open, we’re going to be so far in the hole, it’s going to take a while to climb out from this,” she told KMSP.
Delaware has been the only adult-use marijuana market to launch in 2025 so far.
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