Medical Marijuana Was On The Ballot In Over 100 Kentucky Cities And Counties. It Passed In Every Single Place

Advocates for marijuana reform endured a series of key losses during Tuesday’s election, with legalization proposals defeated in three states. But in Kentucky, voters in more than 100 counties and cities sent a different message, approving local ordinances to allow medical cannabis businesses to operate in their jurisdictions.

After Gov. Andy Beshear (D) signed a medical marijuana legalization bill into law last year, numerous cities and counties have taken up measures on whether to allow banning cannabis businesses in their jurisdictions.

On Tuesday, voters in another 53 counties and 53 cities got the chance to make that decision—and all 106 measures passed, in red and blue jurisdictions alike with more than 340,000 votes total in favor as of Wednesday morning.

“The fact that the marijuana went undefeated 106 to zero in every region of Kentucky in deep red Trump counties shows just how powerful this issue is across the board,” Jim Higdon, co-founder of the Kentucky-based company Cornbread Hemp, told Marijuana Moment.

The latest ordinances add to the more than 40 cities that already approved allowing marijuana businesses. Only 20 have passed resolutions to ban the cannabis industry from working in their area, Kentucky Public Radio reported.

With the medical marijuana law set to take effect in January, regulators with the Office of Medical Cannabis (OCM) have been holding lotteries in recent weeks for cannabis business applicants seeking to enter the industry. So far, they’ve approved several cultivators, processors and testing facilities. A dispensary application lottery will take place on December 16.

The governor separately signed a bill earlier this year that moved the medical cannabis licensing timetable ahead six months to allow the market to launch earlier.

Regulators received about 5,000 applications for medical marijuana business licenses since opening up a two-month window that ended last month.

All told, Kentucky took in nearly $28 million in non-refundable application fees during that two-month period. With about 4,000 applications submitted for dispensary licenses—and just 48 that will be selected statewide—that means each applicant has about a 1 percent chance of being awarded the license.

The governor also recently said that once the cannabis program is up and running, he intends to rescind an executive order he issued last October to legally protect patients who possess medical cannabis purchased at out-of-state licensed retailers.

In June, the governor also announced that the state Board of Medical Licensure and Board of Nursing would simultaneously start issuing permits for doctors and nurses to issue medical cannabis recommendations to patients beginning in July.

Beshear separately participated in a historic roundtable discussion at the White House in March alongside Vice President Kamala Harris and pardon recipients who received clemency under President Joe Biden’s pardon proclamations.

After Biden issued his first pardon proclamation in October 2022, Beshear said he was “actively considering” possible marijuana clemency actions the state could take and encouraged people to petition for relief in the interim. In 2021, he also talked about his desire to let Kentucky farmers grow and sell recreational cannabis across state lines.

In July, Beshear filed a federal comment in support of the Biden administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal, saying the reform will have “substantial and meaningful impacts” on patients, communities, businesses and research.

The governor has separately urged lawmakers to expand the medical marijuana program, announcing in January that two independent advisory groups he appointed unanimously voted to recommend the addition of more than a dozen new conditions to qualify patients for medical cannabis.

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Meanwhile, the state legislature delivered a budget bill to the governor last year that includes a provision restricting funding for the medical cannabis regulatory body overseeing the state program until its advisory board determines there’s a “propensity” of research supporting the therapeutic “efficacy” of cannabis.

This January, Kentucky lawmakers filed marijuana legislation with a notable bill number: HB 420. If passed, it would have legalized and regulated cannabis for adults 21 and older, though it did not advance in the state’s Republican-controlled legislature this session.

A more limited legalization measure, HB 72, was introduced earlier that month by Rep. Nima Kulkarni (D). It would end all penalties for simple possession and use of marijuana by adults 21 and older and also allow adults to grow a small number of cannabis plants at home. Commercial sales, however, would remain prohibited. It too died, however.

Last year, Kulkarni introduced a measure that would have let voters decide whether to legalize use, possession and home cultivation. The lawmaker previously introduced a similar noncommercial legalization proposal for the 2022 legislative session.

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