ST. PAUL, Minn. –The Minnesota House voted 68-54 to get the state-approved retail cannabis business up and going, Although the Legislature approved recreational cannabis as a regulated industry in 2023, the licensing process was not sufficiently defined. The new bill sets up two-level lottery-based system for licensing. One lottery would be for “social equity applicants” and the other for all other applicants. The 2023 system was supposed to be merit-based but proved unwieldy. The new bill’s prime sponsor, Zack Stephenson, D-Coon Rapids, said the goal remains a “legitimate marketplace for cannabis” to displace illicit marketing. The social equity provisions in the new bill would give priority in licensing ro people in high-poverty communities that have been historically disadvantaged by cannabis prohibition. The Stephenson bill still needs to be heard in the Senate.
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Stephenson. A Democrat fro Cook Rapids. An attorney. First elected 2018.