Rhode Island Medical Cannabis Lottery Delayed

Rhode Island is still facing legal setbacks with its medicinal cannabis lottery.

The state regulators have again postponed the lottery, which was originally supposed to take place this week. Now it has been postponed due to an administrative complaint from a rejected lottery applicant.

This is the second time the lottery has been postponed since the idea was first launched in the state. It was originally scheduled to take place last spring, and now, according to the Rhode Island Office of Cannabis Regulation, it is not planned “until this appeal has expired.”

The Office of Cannabis Regulation is administered under the supervision of the Department of Business Revenue. They selected 24 applications out of the 28 applicants who originally applied and one that was not selected was not happy with the results.

Enlite RI, Livity Compassion Center, The Edward O. Hawkins Center, and Atlas Enterprises were the companies that didn’t make it. Atlas Enterprises has filed an appeal that is holding up the lottery. Because of this setback, regulators in the state are still figuring out how the lottery will work.

Matthew Stacroce, chief of the Office of Cannabis Regulation, claims that it could be clearer “in a few weeks” after meeting with attorneys for the rejected applicant and figuring out what to do next.

After the final selection, the companies that emerge victorious from the lottery will be located in six regions of the state. Some companies even filed applications in more than one region to increase their chances of winning and obtaining a license. The 45 applying companies were then paired to the final 28 applications, and 24 were selected by lottery.

It didn’t do this until after months of reviewing the business plans to see who was qualified. It is not entirely clear how the process went and now an appeal is being filed to see why Atlas Enterprises was not selected.

Back in February, the Department of Business Revenue tried to work with a third-party company to run the lottery. They haven’t received any offers from interested companies, however, so they are now working with the State Division of Lottery to better fine-tune the process.

According to Santacroce, the goal was “a slightly less technical” system for selecting winners rather than a sophisticated lottery machine like the one with numbered balls that selects daily lottery numbers. He even suggested using ping pong balls that are “fully weighted, sealed and certified” and then pulled from a basket by the lottery operators.

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Rhode Island and current cannabis stores

There are currently three medical dispensaries across the state in Rhode Island. The Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center is in Providence, the Greenleaf Compassion Center in Portsmouth and the Summit Medical Compassion Center in Warwick. They opened in 2013 and 2014 and have been the only legal cannabis dispensaries in all of Rhode Island since then.

Gina Raimondo, the then governor, pushed for more pharmacies to meet the demand for medical cannabis in the state and improve access to affordable products. She also wanted to introduce a lottery system to avoid political favoritism or unfair selection practices.

Also, with the medical program still removing the kinks and growing pains of expansion, lawmakers are considering legalizing recreational cannabis in the state. The state Senate passed a full legalization bill during the recently closed legislature, but the House of Representatives is postponing the issue until the next General Assembly session.

This makes the lottery system all the more important as medical pharmacies are likely to see initial losses in retail sales once they are legal.