Minnesota lawmakers are working through a number of modifications to the law Gov. Tim Walz signed last year legalizing recreational marijuana in the state.

There are dozens of mostly technical changes in the works at the Capitol. But there’s a hardy debate over the process for giving social equity applicants a leg up in getting cannabis business licenses.

The bill legalizing the use of marijuana for Minnesotans 21 and older created a new state agency tasked with licensing businesses and overseeing a legal market. It gives higher priority to social equity applicants — those that were disproportionately held back by the prior criminalization of marijuana due to their race, community or other attributes.

The law also mandated the expungement of misdemeanor marijuana offenses, and that’s starting to happen.

Native American tribes currently have the ability to sell marijuana, and some are well down that path. But other than in the sovereign nations, DFL lawmakers are trying not to change their tune on when people will be able to walk into dispensaries.

Licenses

Charlene Briner, interim director of the Office of Cannabis Management, told a Senate panel last week that her office anticipates firming up the rules in early 2025. She said the office would try to start to issue contingent licenses for various parts of the growing and selling sooner. A preapproval window could begin this summer.

“However, I want to be very explicit: those early licenses do not allow people who are awarded those licenses to touch the plant because we do have a health and safety and consumer safety concern,” Briner told the Senate State and Local Government and Veterans Committee. “So, we wouldn’t want people operating without rules enforced to make sure that we have those protections.”

Bills lawmakers are advancing would forego a point system to score applicants. Instead, Minnesota would enter qualified applicants into a random lottery to decide who gets business licenses. That change could shield the process from litigation that’s occurred in other places and slowed the retail ramp-up.

DFL lawmakers remain optimistic, at least publicly, that the introduction of a retail market will go smoothly.

Rep. Nolan West. (Courtesy of the candidate)

But Rep. Nolan West of Blaine — one of just five Republicans who voted for the bill last year — said DFL lawmakers’ “obsession about social equity” is taking up all the bandwidth.

“Because [the] black market is the whole problem with prohibition. It makes it more dangerous,” he said. “People are using it anyway, let’s get them in a safe and regulated market. [That] should be the No. 1 priority, but it’s not.”

He calls the timeline of an early 2025 launch to sales “laughable” because so much still needs to happen.

New ideas

There are still new ideas coming up.

Last week, Sen. Susan Pha, DFL-Brooklyn Park, introduced legislation to designate two seats on the Cannabis Advisory Council for people ages 18 to 25. She had a youth-led advocacy group with her that said young people need to be part of the conversation.

Sen. Susan Pha (Courtesy of the candidate)

Pha said there are states that legalized cannabis years ago that are still adding improvements to their laws.

“I really see these as adding to improve the current policy that we passed last year, which was absolutely great,” Pha said. “But we know there are gaps and we know there’s things we still have to add to it.”

One part of the law passed last year that seems to be moving ahead quicker than expected is the expungement of more than 60,000 misdemeanor records as early as next month. The judicial branch has until May 13 to object to any of those expungements.

A separate board is already at work examining more-serious, marijuana-related convictions that could be wiped from records after review.

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