Whirl some Weed this Weekend

MINNESOTA CANNABIS NEWS

Minnesota Legislative Update

Breaking News:

As I was about to press send on this newsletter, I checked my email- and our colleagues at Blunt Strategies had sent an urgent announcement that Governor Walz and House and Senate leadership jointly announced their intention to increase the tax on all hemp and cannabis products from 10% to 15%, in the last days of the session, without public debate. They urge you to:

1. Contact the Governor, Your Legislators, and Legislative Leaders
   

   • Call, email, and meet with them to tell them to oppose the tax increase on hemp and cannabis.

   • Make it clear that higher taxes will harm small businesses and consumers and empower the illicit market.
      

2. Mobilize Your Customers
   

   • Let your customers know that prices could go up because of this tax increase.

   • Ask them to contact their legislators and the Governor to oppose it.
      

3. Speak Out on Social Media
   

   • Share posts to raise awareness and urge others to take action.

They say, Let's remind our leaders that Minnesota's hemp and cannabis industry is built by local entrepreneurs who cannot afford to be taxed out of existence.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Leili at [email protected].

Blunt has helpfully supplied talking points, available here, for communicating about this with policymakers, customers, and the public.

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Last update, I shared that all the cannabis business-related law changes for this session have been collected into a cannabis omnibus bill, and the Minnesota House and Senate have passed different versions of an omnibus bill. That means that they hash out those differences in the conference committee process. You can see the side-by-side comparison of the House and Senate bills here.

I’m hearing that the conference committee meeting is expected to be tomorrow, and will be fairly perfunctory with no time for public comment. So, stay tuned to hear from Nuggets or elsewhere exactly what lands in that bill.

My sources are telling me that they expect it to include:

• Adding the Low-Potency Hemp Wholesaler as a new license category, with high fees ($10K)

• Allowing micros and mezzos to wholesale low-potency hemp products -Some improvements to the medical program: better access laws in healthcare facilities, and for visiting patients

• Some loosening of requirements on the transportation license

My sources do NOT expect this year’s bill to unify the supply chain, which would have made it easier for small players to sell both medical and adult-use.

It is possible that as a compromise the bill would allow the medical companies to sell medical flower wholesale to smaller players, so that they could at least sell that as medical.

No News on:

• Tribal compacts

• Resolution of the lottery litigation

License Application Lottery Day Fast Approaching

Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) previously announced that Thursday, June 5 will be the date for the long-awaited lotteries for capped license types. Here’s what else we know:

License Types Involved:

• Mezzobusiness: Social Equity and then All

• Cultivation: Social Equity and then All

• Manufacturer: Social Equity and then All

• Retailer: Social Equity (only)

The lottery will be livestreamed via OCM’s YouTube Channel. Results will be posted to OCM’s website and shared with applicants after completion.

I’ve previously broken down the details of how OCM will hold these lotteries and the probabilities of winning for each license type here.

License Review Progressing

OCM is making progress reviewing the 3,500 applications they received! They published an updated chart of their progress as of May 14, 2025 (excerpted below).

Comparing to their chart dated May 1 (available in my earlier newsletter), we can see their progress in 2 weeks:

• Approved 5 testing facilities to move to Step 3

• Approved 44 micros (all social equity) to move to Step 3

• Limited progress on new reviews and moving to Step 2; they still have 106 social equity micros and 1,122 non-SEA micros to review

Jen’s take: Good news for those 49 applicants, but it’s slow progress on the pile of applications. I appreciate the transparency, but hope they can move more quickly than that.

Announcing: A Partnership with OAKSTERDAM UNIVERSITY!

Oaksterdam University is the global leader in cannabis education, providing the highest quality training to entrepreneurs, regulators, academia, and people interested in a career in the cannabis industry. Oaksterdam’s founders, faculty, staff, and subject matter experts established the modern standards and business practices that define today’s cannabis industry and led the movement to relegalize and regulate cannabis. OU’s over 100,000 alumni from 116 countries have become influential advocates, business and legislative leaders, and many of the industry’s “firsts.” OU offers certifications for individual learners seeking careers in the cannabis industry, customizable and state-specific workforce training, and helps entrepreneurs navigate the complex landscape of licensing and compliance. 

I chose to partner with Oaksterdam because of their proven track record and commitment to quality training for small operators like those I serve in Minnesota. Their faculty includes truly expert growers, extractors, and industry leaders and they have packaged that knowledge into high-quality course offerings you can access from anywhere, on your schedule. They have helped entrepreneurs launch in all the markets before us, and I’m excited to share their offerings with you.

These include their flagship certification programs:

• Business of Cannabis Certification

• Extraction & Manufacturing Certification 

And you can get access to their entire course library with the All-Access Pass, for a special deal of $199 for the first month, here.

Other Cannabis News

MSO Vireo Growth Inc., which holds one of Minnesota’s two medical licenses, announced on May 12 that they had acquired Utah-based WholesomeCo Cannabis (a delivery + retail company in Utah) and its Arches proprietary technology and analytics platform. In addition, they noted that “Vireo management continues to expect that its other pending merger transactions will close during the second quarter.”

 States continue to wrestle with the regulation of hemp-derived THC. The Alabama governor has signed a bill to regulate them; Marijuana Moment reports that that bill was opposed by the hemp industry as too restrictive and also opposed by a conservative think tank “which argued it did not regulate the products enough.”

Minnesota-based Nothing but Hemp published a detailed article on the Alabama bill, with sharp critiques of its ban on smokeables and other restrictions. Read it here.

 Nationally, the U.S. legal marijuana industry had record sales in 2024 of $30.1 billion, a 4.5% annual increase. The number of industry jobs dropped overall by 3.4%, with mature markets like Arizona and Illinois losing significant numbers of jobs, partially offset by increases in emerging markets like New York, which grew its cannabis workforce by 209% in 2024. LINK

Jen’s take: We are on the cusp of an explosion in cannabis industry jobs in Minnesota. I’ve already seen OCM hiring for 8 new inspectors and a marketing job with Island Pezi this week alone. Soon, there will be jobs as budtenders at new dispensaries and cultivation jobs at grows, as well as growth in all sorts of ancillary markets.

 New York’s OCM released a 2024 Market Report, stating that there have been more than $1 billion in retail sales in New York’s 2-year-old legal market, from more than 260 operational dispensaries statewide. Read report

Jen’s take: New York’s rollout has been famously rocky, with reports of illegal storefronts far outnumbering legal stores. I wonder what the sales number between the black market and the new legal market would be?!

 As far as national reform, we remain in total limbo, with rescheduling stalled and contradictory signals from the Trump administration. As Marijuana Moment reports,

“President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said late last month that examining a proposal to federally reschedule marijuana will be “one of my first priorities” if he’s confirmed for the role, saying it’s “time to move forward” on the stalled process.

However, DEA administrator nominee Terrance Cole repeatedly declined to commit to support the specific proposed rule to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) that was initiated under the Biden administration.

…

Trump initially chose Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff Chad Chronister to lead DEA, but the prospective nominee—who strongly advocated for marijuana decriminalization—withdrew from consideration in January amid scrutiny from conservative lawmakers over the sheriff’s record on COVID-related public safety enforcement actions.

As far as the marijuana rescheduling process is concerned, DEA recently notified an agency judge that the proceedings are still on hold—with no future actions currently scheduled as the matter sits before the acting administrator, Derek Maltz, who has called cannabis a “gateway drug” and linked its use to psychosis.”

In more favorable news, however, “Jeanine Pirro, President Donald Trump’s new nominee for acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, joined the board of a CBD company—in contrast to her predecessor in the role who sent a threat letter to a locally licensed medical cannabis dispensary, “ Marijuana Moment reported on May 13.

And even Good Morning America is covering the popularity of THC seltzers (with a number of Minnesota brands pictured in the story!)

Industry Classifieds

Have a property or services to offer to my readers? Or, looking for one?

I’m going to try this Classifieds Section approach and see if it helps people connect as they build their cannabis businesses in Minnesota. Contact me for more info: [email protected]

What Else I’m Reading

The ADHD Entrepreneur’s Edge: Why Your Chaotic Brain Might Be Your Greatest Advantage (Jesse J. Anderson and Skye Waterson, on Substack)

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

UPCOMING EVENTS

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