Applicants from outside Minnesota seek adult-use marijuana social equity licenses

Almost half the applicants for a marijuana social equity license in Minnesota don’t live in the state.

Of the 1,817 parties who submitted a pre-application to the state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) before an Aug. 12 deadline, only 802 are Minnesota residents, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Just 282 of the applicants will eventually receive permits, which will be awarded via a lottery, regulators told Minnesota Public Radio.

According to the broadcast outlet, the breakdown of verified social equity applicants is:

• 39% are veterans.
• 29% have marijuana-related offenses.
• 25% live in areas designated as high poverty or with high rates of marijuana arrests.
• 6% have dependents with marijuana-related convictions.
• 1% are small farmers, with gross sales between $5,000 and $100,000.

Marijuana social equity mission

Designed to ensure minority participation in an industry that’s become notoriously dominated by white males, social equity programs have largely struggled to fulfill their ambitious promises.

Minnesota has no residency requirement to be eligible for a social equity license.

That’s in part because residency checks frequently have been targets for lawsuits since a federal judge in 2022 declared a residency requirement in Maine unconstitutional.

Many legal experts agree favoring state residents violates the U.S. Constitution.

The alternative, critics say, are state-regulated marijuana markets dominated by well-capitalized, out-of-market interests.

And that’s exactly what Minnesota wants to avoid, according to OCM spokesperson Josh Collins.

The agency plans to further reduce the list of eligible social equity permits to ensure “there aren’t any large corporations or multistate offers that might be trying to sort of get in and game the system through an ownership with a social equity applicant,” he told Minnesota Public Radio.

Such gamesmanship has been an issue in Missouri, where regulators have revoked permits in response.

Marijuana sales in 2025

In Minnesota, where Gov. Tim Walz signed adult-use legalization into law last year, social equity permit holders are expected to be the first to start operations when licenses are issued.

But that’s not expected to happen until 2025, the Star Tribune reported.

In the meantime, adult-use cannabis sales have launched on tribal lands in the state.

And Minnesota is proving a popular market for hemp-derived cannabinoid products such as drinks, which can be legally sold at mainstream retailers including liquor stores.