The rules say that you don’t have to know a guy to enter Rhode Island’s multimillion-dollar medical cannabis business. All you have to do is get lucky and be one of six nonprofits to win a lottery that will take place sometime next year.
But that didn’t stop 28 entities from enlisting a sitting mayor, several former state lawmakers, and a phalanx of prominent lobbyists as they prepared their applications to open six new compassion centers — the places where people can purchase medical cannabis —throughout the state.
It’s a high-stakes competition in which organizations will spend tens of thousands dollars just to apply. And while medical cannabis alone turns a hefty profit, many of the players involved are betting that a more lucrative prize is on the horizon: the complete legalization of cannabis for adults, as in Massachusetts.
“People are assuming that the compassion centers will be the exclusive sellers of recreational cannabis,” said Jeff Padwa, an attorney who represents Rhode Island Care Concepts, which submitted four applications to open sites in Rhode Island.
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