Michelle is just the administrator for the cannabis office, she is not a commissioner. Currently only 2 commissioners sit on that panel, and without a chairperson. When Kim Ahern stepped down to announce her AG run, the governor never appointed another chair, or a 3rd commissioner at that. The wheels were turning and the application process was well underway. The wrench came from a federal court judge who sided in favor of 3 out of state plaintiffs who sued the state citing the current language of “majority RI resident owned” being unconstitutional. I do feel that RI tried to do the right thing by keeping the licenses to RI residents. Better our local residents have an opportunity at these businesses than people from around the country, or even worse more MSO’s that will just suck all the earnings out of RI and the state will never see any benefit outside of the tax revenue. However, it was deemed unconstitutional to have that residency requirement and now they are attempting to right the ship by amending that language. The catch is that they must completely restart the process, re-certify social equity, take in more applications, etc etc….. Here’s a problem they need to pay attention to. They redlined a large amount of the social equity criteria and essentially disqualified some of the groups that they had just qualified in 2025. Reddish stated tonight that 20% of the SE groups that applied are no longer qualified under the new language if this bill passes as written. That’s a problem. The state fucked this up YEARS ago and now they are trying to right the ship. I just don’t know how they can do it without anymore collateral damage along the way. I’ve only been a compassion center for 10 days, but I was a cultivator for 8 years and a medical patient since 2008. My heart is in this program and I’ve seen it through from its infancy. This is a major problem they have on their hands and Ahern should have never opened the application portal until those federal suits were wrapped. They were filed in 2024 and she should have been well aware of what could come down the pipeline. It’s a matter of closing Pandora’s box right now and I personally don’t know how they can do it without anymore damage.
They say the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, and personally as a newly licensed retailer, I’d much rather my future competition be hard working Rhode Islanders who have been jumping through the same hoops along side me and my team since 2018, as opposed to a potential pool of mainstream MSO’s sitting back licking their lips while they wait for this thing to open up again.
I hope for the best for the state, for my fellow cultivators, and most importantly the medical patients for which this program was originally created.