The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OC) awarded 249 cannabis business licenses last week during the state’s first cannabis licensing lottery.

The virtual lotteries were streamed online via YouTube on Thursday. The lotteries covered social equity applicants and general applicants seeking cannabis cultivator, manufacturer, and mezzobusiness licenses. Officials also held a fourth lottery for social equity applicants seeking a retailer license. Winning applicants have moved to the final steps of the licensing process.

“This is an exciting day for business owners preparing to establish themselves in the state’s new adult-use cannabis market. We’re setting a strong foundation for an equitable and safe adult-use cannabis market that will mature over the next few years.” — OCM Interim Director Eric Taubel, in a press release

OCM will hold a follow-up general lottery for retail licenses on July 22, and social equity applicants who were not selected during the initial lottery will have another chance at winning a license. In Minnesota, social equity applicants include people who were previously convicted of a cannabis crime, military veterans, and people living in areas with higher poverty rates or historically high rates of cannabis enforcement, among other qualifications set by the state.

Additionally, there will be another lottery later in the summer for cannabis event organizer applications.

“There’s a lot of cannabis that needs to be grown, a lot of cannabis products that need to be manufactured, and today’s lottery will set the course for a number of those new operators to start to build in that capacity,” Taubel told Minnesota Public Radio.

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A leading alcohol industry association is calling on Congress to dial back language in a House committee-approved spending bill that would ban most consumable hemp products, instead proposing to maintain the legalization of naturally derived cannabinoids from the crop and only prohibit synthetic items.

Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA), which has backed federally legalizing marijuana and regulating hemp products, said on Friday that it generally supports the effort to ban synthetic cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC that have proliferated since the federal legalization of hemp under the 2018 Farm Bill.

But the hemp provision of the spending bill that cleared the the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies on Thursday is a bridge too far, the association said.

“WSWA supports the subcommittee’s action to eliminate synthetic, unnatural cannabinoids that are a threat to public health and safety,” WSWA President and CEO Francis Creighton said in a press release. “But prohibition of all cannabinoids is not the answer—it risks sweeping up state regulated and Farm Bill compliant hemp-derived products that have driven a new and dynamic market.”

“Under attempted complete prohibition, bad actors dealing in potentially harmful products will continue to operate and thrive in the shadows, while state regulatory structures that protect public safety will be put in conflict with Federal law,” Creighton said.

WSWA put forward a policy recommendations for lawmakers to consider—namely removing the a provision redefining hemp in a way that’d prohibit products with any quantifiable amount of THC so that the federal government could instead “preserve state authority, protect compliant businesses, and ensure clarity for consumers and regulators.”

The consumable hemp product crackdown isn’t exclusive to the federal government, as multiple states—from California to Florida to Texas—have moved to ban intoxicating cannabinoids in recent months.

“States have stepped up to fill the regulatory vacuum, and Congress must be careful not to undermine their progress,” Creighton said.

Shawn Lederman of the Florida-based Greenlight Distribution said the company has “invested in jobs, infrastructure, and compliance to bring accountability to this space—efforts that would be wiped out overnight, handing the market to unregulated bad actors. We urge Congress to respect our business and citizens. A total ban would be devastating.”

John Giarrante, president of Show Me Beverages in Missouri, said the committee’s “proposal to ban naturally occurring hemp-derived products like Delta-9 will undermine the legitimate and responsible work we’ve done to meet consumer demand while prioritizing public health and safety.”

“We’ve built a compliant, transparent business to bring structure and legitimacy to this fast-growing market,” he said. “This action would not only undo that progress but also have a harmful economic impact—putting jobs at risk and handing the entire category over to unlicensed, unregulated actors with no regard for safety or accountability.”

Members of WSWA also met with lawmakers and staffers in April to advocate for three key policy priorities that the group says is based on “sound principles of alcohol distribution.” They include banning synthetic THC, setting up a federal system for testing and labeling products and establishing state-level power to regulate retail sales.

In an op-ed for Marijuana Moment this month, Creighton echoed that point, reiterating the organization’s position that regulation is superior to prohibition.

This is also consistent with WSWA’s earlier message to House and Senate Agriculture Committee last session, where the association implored congressional leaders to create a regulatory framework for hemp-based intoxicating cannabinoids—rather than impose an outright ban.

Meanwhile, key GOP congressional lawmakers—including one member who supports marijuana legalization—don’t seem especially concerned about provisions in a new spending bill that would put much of the hemp industry in jeopardy by banning most consumable products derived from the plant.

Under the measure that’s being contested, hemp would be redefined under federal statute in a way that would prohibit cannabis products containing any “quantifiable” amount of THC or “any other cannabinoids that have similar effects (or are marketed to have similar effects) on humans or animals” as THC.

The provisions in the bill now heading to a full committee vote would effectively eliminate the most commonly marketed hemp products within the industry, as even non-intoxicating CBD items that are sold across the country typically contain trace amounts of THC. Under current law, those products are allowed if they contain no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight.

Hemp industry stakeholders rallied against that proposal, an earlier version of which was also included in the base bill from the subcommittee last year. It’s virtually identical to a provision of the 2024 Farm Bill that was attached by a separate committee last May via an amendment from Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), which was also not enacted into law.

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Jonathan Miller, general counsel of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, told congressional lawmakers in April that the market is “begging” for federal regulations around cannabis products.

At the hearing, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) also inquired about FDA inaction around regulations, sarcastically asking if it’d require “a gazillion bureaucrats that work from home” to regulate cannabinoids such as CBD.

A report from Bloomberg Intelligence (BI) last year called cannabis a “significant threat” to the alcohol industry, citing survey data that suggests more people are using cannabis as a substitute for alcoholic beverages such a beer and wine.

Last November, meanwhile, a beer industry trade group put out a statement of guiding principles to address what it called “the proliferation of largely unregulated intoxicating hemp and cannabis products,” warning of risks to consumers and communities resulting from THC consumption.

New Hampshire House Advances Bills To Reduce Psilocybin Penalties And Legalize Medical Marijuana Homegrow By Patients

[PRESS RELEASE] – MINNEAPOLIS, June 9, 2025 – Vireo Growth Inc. announced that it has closed its previously announced transaction to acquire Nevada-based Deep Roots Holdings Inc.

Deep Roots was founded in 2023 and is a consistently solid operator in Nevada’s mature cannabis market, with a 54,000-square-foot cultivation and manufacturing facility and ten active retail dispensaries. The company maintains strong relative performance due to favorable contributions from strategically situated stores in Southern Nevada on the Utah border. Also, it holds equity and debt investments in a retail chain in California, and a vertical operator in Ohio and Massachusetts.

Total consideration for the transaction was $132.7 million, paid in the form of 255.2 million subordinate voting shares of Vireo at a reference price per share of $0.52. The purchase price of the Deep Roots transaction represents a multiple of 4.175x 2024 “closing EBITDA” of $30 million. The transaction is subject to claw-back provisions if 2026 EBITDA is below closing EBITDA as of Dec. 31, 2026. The selling shareholders agreed to voluntary share lock-up provisions, with tranches of shares received in connection with the closing unlocking over a 33-month period.