First lottery drawing for medical marijuana licenses in Kentucky to be held Monday

The first license lottery of Kentucky’s medical marijuana program will be on Monday.The lottery is for cultivators and processors of the drug. A separate lottery for dispensaries is also expected to be held sometime in the future before the end of the year.Kentucky law defines cultivators as being “responsible for planting, raising, harvesting, trimming, and curing raw plant material.” Processors are defined as being “responsible for processing and packaging raw plant material into usable product formats.”Only 16 cultivator licenses and 10 processor licenses will be given out in the first drawing based on random chance, and 584 cultivators and 344 processors have applied.The license drawing will be livestreamed at 2 p.m.This comes after state lawmakers legalized medical cannabis across the state last year.However, in order for stores to be granted permission to open within a particular community, either local governments or voters must approve of the ability of stores to open up within their communities.Next week, voters in more than 100 cities and counties across the state will decide whether to allow medical cannabis dispensaries to open up within their communities.Voters in Carroll, Grant, Robertson and Pendleton counties are among those in northern Kentucky that will have the measures on their ballots.Additionally, the cities of Florence, Union, Crestview Hills, Elsmere, Independence, Ludlow, Alexandria, Bellevue, Southgate and Wilder will also be among those that will see the measure on the ballot within their communities.Other cities, such as Covington, Newport, Erlanger, Fort Wright, Dayton and Corinth, have already opted in through decisions made by their individual city governments.Dispensaries will be allowed to start selling in the state on Jan. 1, 2025.