WILMORE, Ky. — With 100 acres at Black Barn Farms, there is plenty of room to grow.
Since 2018, growth has involved harvesting hemp, and in a good year, that’s 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of finished flower alone.
“We are the largest flower producer in the state, by far,” owner Nic Johnson said.
Johnson, 41, envisioned even more growth with a similar, but not yet legal crop in Kentucky, until now.
On January 1, medical marijuana became legal in the state, and Johnson wanted his farm to be one of the biggest farms to produce it.
In fact, he was so confident as a proven hemp farmer that he would get a Cultivator Tier III license, Johnson laid the foundation and erected the framework on a new 13,000 square foot barn for an indoor grow.
Completing construction is now on pause.
His $500,000 gamble with the barn, plus another $20,000 for the application fee, didn’t hit at the Oct. 28 license lottery.
“We were under the impression that Kentucky hemp growers were going to be shown preference and be at the front of the line on receiving medical cannabis licenses,” Johnson said.
The only priority hemp growers got was having their applications reviewed first.
Johnson submitted his application on July 3, just two days after the online portal opened.
“If anything, we just got scrutinized earlier and more often than everybody else who put their applications in at the last minute.”
In the last 4 days of the portal, which closed August 31, there were 4,411 applications for all business categories filed, according to the state’s Office of Medical Cannabis.
Johnson believes that’s the definition of application (app) stacking.
“Same people, creating hundreds of LLCs within a five day, ten day window at the end of the application process.”
74 licenses total were awarded, and the vast majority went to out-of-state applicants.
Despite that, at each of the three license lotteries, the governor along with the head of the state’s medical cannabis program repeatedly defended the process.
“This was the most fair and transparent way to build this exciting industry in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Sam Flynn, the executive director of the Office of Medical Cannabis, said at the Oct. 28 lottery.
“We’ve been fully transparent,” Gov. Andy Beshear said at the Dec. 16 lottery. “The question is if you have the laws on the books and everybody’s seen them, and everybody has approved the regulations ahead of time, and you use a group like the Kentucky Lottery Corporation, and you televise the whole thing, the question is what is there to ultimately audit?”
State Auditor Allison Ball might have a say in that.
After FOCUS reached out to her office and after watching our reports which explored questionable, potentially unfair tactics used in the application process, Ball’s team has spoken with several Kentucky-based applicants, including Nic Johnson.
“I basically corroborated a lot of info that they already had,” Johnson revealed. “They’re taking it very seriously, and they seem to think that something was very afoul.”
Auditor Ball provided us with this emailed statement:
“Over the last few weeks, my office has heard from numerous Kentuckians who have expressed grave concerns about all aspects of the operations and processes of Governor Beshear’s Office of Medical Cannabis. The Kentuckians with whom my office has spoken come from all walks of life with wide-ranging viewpoints and professions. But they all seem to agree on one thing: There are serious issues with how Governor Beshear’s Office of Medical Cannabis has handled the General Assembly’s legalization of medical cannabis. As Kentucky’s ultimate watchdog of government conduct, I will continue to evaluate the concerns of all who wish to express them to me and determine the role that my office should play in rectifying those concerns. ” -Auditor Allison Ball
Johnson is hopeful Auditor Ball will follow through on a thorough inspection.
“I think it’s important for transparency to all Kentuckians, to all business owners, to all future patients.”
He says an audit would make him feel much better moving forward, which likely will include applying again for a cultivator license.
►Contact FOCUS investigator John Charlton at jcharlton@whas11.com. Follow him on X (@JCharltonNews) and Facebook.
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