Almost 900 applicants are competing for 77 marijuana licenses in Missouri’s final microbusiness lottery.
The Missouri Lottery will draw the winning applicants Sept. 9, according to the Missouri Independent.
The state will issue at least 29 wholesale and 34 retail licenses to meet the constitutional requirement of 144 microbusiness licenses. Regulators plan to award the licenses before the end of the year.
What changed leading up to this cannabis licensing round?
The program, created under the 2022 constitutional amendment that legalized recreational cannabis in Missouri, was designed to expand opportunities for marginalized and underrepresented people in the state’s $1.5 billion regulated marijuana market.
Applicants in the third round enter a system rebuilt after two years of license revocations. The Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation revoked numerous licenses over ownership deals it called unconstitutional – many tied to contracts regulators described as “predatory.”
New rules enacted in May aim to stop that turnover by:
- Requiring applicants to complete a compliance course before applying and after receiving a license.
- Mandating that regulators communicate directly with majority owners, not consultants.
- Allowing regulators to review ownership arrangements before licenses are issued rather than after.
Are there still weak points in Missouri’s cannabis market?
The rules also clarify what it means to “majority own and operate” a license, a requirement outlined in the 2022 amendment.
As of Aug. 18, only 21 microbusiness licenses were operational – five retail and 16 wholesale. Another 46 licenses from the first two rounds are active but not yet approved to operate.
Jimi Poe, owner of 816 Dispensary in Platte City, among the first licensees selected in 2023, opened Missouri’s first operating microbusiness dispensary. The process took two years instead of the six months he expected.
Poe said manufacturing remains the ecosystem’s weak point. “The manufacturing and equipment and the know-how, people are still trying to figure that out,” Poe told the Independent.
