Lawmakers hear regulators and industry on medical cannabis pricing, licensing and patient access

The joint interim Agriculture Committee on July 2 heard regulators and industry representatives explain why medical cannabis retail prices remain high shortly after the program's launch and what policy changes could lower costs and increase patient access.

Patients and lawmakers pressed the Office of Medical Cannabis (OMC) and the Kentucky Cannabis Industry Alliance (KCIA) on affordability and licensing. Rick Hunt of Hopkinsville, who said he has a lifelong spinal-cord cancer condition, told the panel he faced "sticker shock" at local dispensaries and contrasted local retail prices with much lower costs he had seen in neighboring states. "I went to a place in Illinois where a one-gram cartridge was $24," Hunt said; he said the local price he observed was about $130 and asked why the disparity existed.

OMC officials and industry witnesses said the high early prices primarily reflect a small patient base, the fixed costs of highly regulated indoor cultivation and processing, and required security and testing. Sam Flynn, immediate past executive director of the Office of Medical Cannabis, and Canon Armstrong, OMC's executive director, traced the program's legal and regulatory history and defended a limited-license, lottery-driven rollout that OMC said was designed to avoid the litigation and market collapse seen in some other states. Flynn reported that the office received 4,998 applications and said roughly 86% of complete applicants ultimately were included in the lottery process. He described contracting with the Kentucky Lottery Corporation to run a public lottery and said priority review was given to hemp businesses deemed to be "in good standing" under House Bill 829.

On prices, OMC told the committee that wholesale and retail figures are trending down as cultivators, processors and dispensaries come online. OMC provided committee materials showing an average wholesale price of approximately $17.25 per unit of edibles and $27.64 per unit of raw plant material, and said retail was generally about double wholesale (materials provided to the committee). The office also reported production and sales through June 11, 2026: 539 pounds of raw plant material shipped to dispensaries; 22,665 edible units; 24,517 concentrate units; 1,197 oral oil units; and $4,421,224.73 in combined sales across 17 operational dispensaries.

KCIA representative Rachel Roberts said the industry's capital-intensive, medical-grade setup (indoor cultivation, two-stage testing, secure transport, compliant packaging and 24/7 security at dispensaries) means fixed costs are spread across a small patient base, which keeps retail prices high. She cited an industry estimate that roughly 400,000 Kentuckians could be eligible under current qualifying conditions but said only about 24,000 6,000 people had registered as cardholders so far, and that typical participation rates in similar programs range from 7% to 10% of eligible patients, which would imply roughly 36,000 4,000 participants under current rules.

Roberts recommended several legislative changes to expand access and accelerate price compression: remove the notarization step on patient applications, permit telehealth for initial certification visits, consider giving physicians broader discretion to certify patients (as in some other states), and lift a statutory 70/30 potency processing cap that KCIA said forces processors to add dilution agents. She also urged limited, regulated advertising to increase awareness among eligible patients.

Committee members asked detailed process questions about the licensing review, ownership disclosures and background checks. OMC said applicants had to report parent entities and ownership information, sign a notarized affidavit attesting to the accuracy of disclosures, and were subject to criminal-history checks; OMC said those rules were intended to prevent ownership gaming and to reduce litigation risk. The office also explained it prioritized review of hemp businesses in good standing by contracting with the Kentucky Department for Agriculture to verify those businesses.

Lawmakers discussed the governor's 2022 executive order that had allowed some Kentuckians to travel out of state for medical cannabis with prospective pardons; OMC said that order expired the day before the meeting and that, absent a new executive order or statute, patients may not legally purchase out-of-state cannabis and bring it back to Kentucky.

What happens next: lawmakers asked staff for presentation materials and additional data; several members signaled interest in considering statutory fixes (telehealth, notarization removal, potency cap changes) during the next legislative session. OMC and KCIA said they will provide requested materials, and both offered facility tours to committee members.

Sources and attribution: quotes and figures above were taken from OMC and KCIA remarks and committee Q&A recorded in the July 2 committee transcript.