Medical marijuana sales in Kentucky are on track to launch sometime this fall, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday.
There are already 16,000 people with physicians’ recommendations to access medical cannabis in Kentucky, where an MMJ program launched Jan. 1 without anywhere to obtain cannabis.
That will change sometime in the next few months when the first patients visit The Post Dispensary in Beaver Dam, the first store to receive state approval, Beshear said in a post on X.
“This is another step forward as we work to ensure Kentuckians with serious medical conditions have access to the medicine they need and deserve,” the governor said.
When The Post opens, it may be selling cannabis cultivated by Armory Kentucky, which received a delivery of “thousands” of cannabis plants on July 11.
Those plants should be ready for harvest and curing by September, which would put the state on track for the first sale by October, Louisville Public Media reported.
Beshear signed a bill into law legalizing MMJ in Kentucky in March 2023.
The state issued the first 36 cannabis dispensary permits via a lottery in November 2024, out of a pool of more than 5,000 applicants.
Spurned applicants cried foul, pointing out that out-of-state companies – including many with identical controlling parties – flooded the lottery with applicants, squeezing out locally owned businesses.
That’s the argument several companies used in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the state’s MMJ program filed in July.
MMJ sales in Kentucky may reach $126 million in 2026, according to an MJBizFactbook prediction.
It remains to be seen how sales may be affected by the presence of hemp-derived THC products like the low-dose drinks lawmakers voted to regulate earlier this year.
