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MURRAY – When Murray and Calloway County voters go to the polls this week for early voting and next Tuesday on election day, they will be asked to decide whether or not to allow medical cannabis dispensaries locally.
During Kentucky’s 2024 legislative session, Gov. Andy Beshear signed Senate Bill 47 into law, legalizing medical cannabis beginning Jan 1, 2025. Smoking marijuana will remain illegal under all circumstances, but medical patients will be allowed to consume cannabis by means of edibles, oils, tinctures and vape products. Cannabis consumption outside of the medical cannabis program remains illegal in the state.
According to kymedcan.ky.gov, the commonwealth plans to ensure that patients have access to medical providers and treatment for qualifying conditions; that medical products are contaminant-free and labeled accurately to inform patients and caregivers; that cannabis is kept away from children and those who are not legally allowed to possess and consume cannabis; that cannabis businesses operate safely and responsibly; and that Kentucky’s statutes and administrative regulations are the laws that will govern how the medical cannabis program will work for individuals and for businesses.
The Cabinet for Health and Family Services is responsible for developing and implementing regulations for the medical cannabis program,” the site said. “When regulations related to medical cannabis have been announced by the Cabinet, you may access them (at kymedcan.ky.gov).”
The statute allowed city and county governments to decide if they wanted to allow medical dispensaries or processors within their boundaries or to allow local voters to decide by voting yes or no on a ballot question during November’s general election. If governments took no action, the operations would become legal by default. Earlier this year, both the Murray City Council and the Calloway County Fiscal Court declined to decide the issue themselves and instead voted to put the issue on the ballot. Early voting will be held at the Miller Courthouse Annex, 201 South Fourth St., on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and eight voting centers will be open on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 5.
According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, only 48 dispensary licenses will be granted at the launch of the medical program next year, and the dispensaries will be spread across 11 licensing regions throughout the state. Speaking to the General Assembly’s Interim Joint Committee on Health Services last Wednesday, the executive director of Kentucky’s Office of Medical Cannabis, Sam Flynn, told legislators the licensing regions were created to ensure equitable access to medical cannabis regardless of where patients might live.
Four dispensary licenses will be issued in each region, with no county allowed more than one dispensary. The exception is the regions containing Jefferson and Fayette counties, since those two counties will each receive two dispensary licenses due to being the state’s largest population centers, Flynn said. Calloway County is one of 10 counties located in Region 8, which also contains McCracken, Ballard, Carlisle, Hickman, Fulton, Graves, Marshall, Livingston and Crittenden counties.
While city and county administrators have been studying the statute and trying to prepare for the possibility that dispensaries will become legal in Murray or Calloway County, many of the specific state regulations won’t be known until closer to January. Even so, there are still some facts of which voters should be aware before making their decision in the voting booth.
“I think if I were a voter, what I would want to know is there are various tiers of what the state will allow,” said Murray City Administrator Jim Osborne. “You have a tier of cultivator, you have a dispensary, a processor, a producer and a safety compliance facility. Now, the state will drive how many of those each region will get, if I’m correct. There are only so many, but essentially, a dispensary, as I understand it, is where citizens would obtain their medical cannabis lawfully.”
Osborne said that in his position as city administrator, he has had to start preparing for the possibility of voters approving the ability to locate a dispensary here. If that happens, city officials will have done their research and will hopefully know by then exactly what is expected of local government, he said. While a draft ordinance has been created, it cannot be completed until after election day has concluded, he said.
“When the council voted to put this on the ballot, we went through the planning department and identified zones where these different types of facilities could be located in the city, so that when these individuals filed an application on this first round of applicants through the state, they would have a better idea of where these could be,” Osborne said. “So that part of the ordinance is done, and at some point in the very near future, the rest of the ordinance will be complete regarding the sale of medical cannabis, provided that it passes on the ballot.”
“I think the main thing that we (council members and the administration) were thinking was this is an issue that the people need to decide,” said Murray Mayor Bob Rogers. “If a dispensary is located in Murray, would they support or object to it? Of course, at this point, I don’t think anybody knows where they’re going to be located, but there will be four in the western part of the state, and (the state will determine the licenses through lottery).”
Calloway County Judge-Executive Kenny Imes said county magistrates also felt the issue should be left to voters.
“The United States is a republic; Kentucky is basically a democracy, so I think any time you give people the ability to directly vote on an issue, the better off everybody is,” Imes said. “Even though people aren’t always going to agree, and it’s not going to be 100% one way or another, giving the public the right to have a say in whatever our government does is a perfect way to do it.
“As far as the issue itself, one thing I want to be sure that people are clear on is that we’re not voting whether or not to allow the sale of (recreational) marijuana in Calloway County right now. I will say that I think that whether we’re able to vote on it or not, it’s probably only a very short time period before that’s going to be the next big issue with regard to cannabis or marijuana, whatever you want to call it – but this is strictly medical cannabis. You would have to go to a doctor, get a prescription and have a card on you that says you’ve got a prescription for it for it to be dispensed.
“What you’re really (voting on) is whether or not we’re going to have dispensaries in Calloway County and/or the city of Murray. I want to be sure people understand that if you live in Murray, technically, you’re going to vote on this twice. Residents of the city will vote on whether or not to allow it in the city, and the county people, including Murray residents, will be able to vote countywide, which includes Hazel and Murray, on whether to allow it outside the city limits or not. So it’s somewhat confusing, but in general, if you’re for the sale and dispensing of it, you would vote yes, and if you’re against it, whether it’s in the city or county, you would vote no. Of course, people that live outside the city of Murray will be able to vote one time.”
Imes added that if cannabis facilities are approved by local voters, they would be “very closely regulated by the state,” and he noted that if the Fiscal Court had not decided to put the issue on the ballot, dispensaries would have automatically become legal in the county. He said his guess is that the economic impact would be “negligible,” and his biggest concern is how the county would cover costs for any additional enforcement that might come with verifying people’s medical cards if they are found with marijuana during a traffic stop, administering blood tests when people are suspected of driving under the influence and other related measures.
“We’ve got no way of increasing our income that I’m aware of to offset any expenditures, i.e., the sheriff’s office, the city police and with regard to the county’s jail,” Imes said. “That’s going to be a negative number, unless there were some fee system, whereas, if you were full-scale (adult use recreational) marijuana, then you could charge a fee or a tax on that sale, like Illinois. It’s here whether you want it or not and whether you’ve got the card or not, and I’m sure people are already applying for cards, so even if Calloway County votes it down and doesn’t have dispensaries here, you can still get the card and go to whatever county does allow dispensaries.”
Imes said that if the voters do approve dispensaries in the county, the Fiscal Court would be prepared to pass the second reading of an ordinance establishing the regulations for any potential facilities.
According to the state, the program filed two administrative regulations in April, which provided how medical cannabis businesses could apply to become licensed in the Commonwealth. Three months before that, the program filed 10 ordinary regulations governing medical cannabis business operations, including rules for cultivators, processors, producers, dispensaries and safety compliance facilities that will operate in the Commonwealth. These new rules also provide how medical cannabis products will be packaged, labeled, transported, advertised and tested, the site said. The program has also provided additional guidance on provisional licenses, change of location requests, and lottery selection for dispensary licenses and guidance on documentation of sufficient capital. The previous initial cannabis business license period was open from July 1 to Aug. 31, 2024.
Starting today, Oct. 28, the Office of Medical Cannabis will issue its initial allocation of medical cannabis business licenses using a lottery, which the site said is the “most fair and transparent method for allocating medical cannabis business licenses” in the state. According to a news release issued last week, Beshear and officials from the Office of Medical Cannabis will join executives with the Kentucky Lottery Corporation to draw selectees in the first license lottery of the Medical Cannabis Program, which is cultivators and processors. During the July-August application period, the Kentucky Office of Medical Cannabis received 4,998 submissions for medical cannabis business licenses, of which 918 were cultivator and processor applicants, the release said. “In partnership with the Kentucky Lottery Corporation, the initial business licenses for cultivators and processors will be randomly selected. Available categories include 10 tier I cultivator licenses, four tier II cultivator licenses, two tier III cultivator licenses and 10 processor licenses,” the release said.
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