Nebraska Gov. Signs Emergency Regulations for Medical Cannabis, Including Cultivation Limits

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) last week signed the revised emergency regulations submitted by the Nebraska Cannabis Commission, KOLN reports. The regulations include a cap of 1,250 flowering plants for licensed cultivators in the state – a limit Pillen requested before agreeing to sign the regulations into law.  

In a letter to the commission, Pillen said that not having plant limits on cultivators “would increase likelihood of an overabundance of cannabis product that creates an unregulated, unintended black-market supply.”  

The commission’s now-approved rules allow for four cultivators, four processors, and 12 dispensaries. They also ban edibles, smokable, and vaporizable cannabis products and only allow cannabis to be consumed via oral tablets, capsules, tinctures, gels, oils, or creams or other topicals. Patients are also barred from growing their own cannabis. 

Following Pillen’s plant limit demands and the commission’s acquiescence, Crista Eggers, the executive director of Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, which backed the campaign to enact the reforms, told Nebraska Public Radio that the number is inadequate.

“What we’ve seen in states across the nation, when you too narrowly restrict the cannabis product or the ability for people to grow it or manufacture it or to sell it on the shelves in the dispensary, we unfortunately see the black market just skyrocket,” she said.

Licensing is expected to begin on October 1.