Since Connecticut approved recreational marijuana over a year ago, the process of licensing and building out the state’s market has been a slow burn.
But regulators said this week that approved marijuana businesses are on track to launch retail sales within the next few months – delayed from their original timeline, but in keeping with more recent estimates.
In an announcement Tuesday, the Department of Consumer Protection said the supply chain was close to reaching the 250,000 square feet of licensed growing and manufacturing space required by law for sales of recreational marijuana to start.
“Given this threshold, the start of adult-use cannabis sales relies on the successful conversion of all four existing medical marijuana producers or additional cultivation to come online,” the announcement read.
As of this week, three of those four existing medical marijuana producers – Advanced Grow Labs, Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions and Curaleaf – have fulfilled the requirements to obtain hybrid licenses, enabling them to serve both the medical and recreational markets. The fourth application was submitted two weeks ago and is under review, according to DCP.
As expected, the state’s existing medicinal marijuana infrastructure provided the groundwork for establishing the adult-use supply chain, but the fees to convert those licenses were…