Andy Beshear toured a new medical cannabis growing operation in Richmond on Wednesday.

Beshear cut the ribbon on Natural State GreenGrass Cannaco at the Richmond Industrial Park. It is a subsidiary of Arkansas-based Dark Horse Cannabis.

Kentucky lawmakers legalized medical marijuana in 2023, and the law became effective last January.

The Richmond growing operation is Tier 3, which is the largest licensed by the Office of Medical Cannabis.

It is the second licensed facility to begin operations in Kentucky. The first started operations in Mayfield last summer.

Beshear and senior adviser Rocky Adkins were also scheduled to tour a medical cannabis dispensary in Lexington on Wednesday.

Recreational cannabis remains illegal in Kentucky. Legislation in the House of Representatives would remove criminal penalties for possessing small amounts. Another bill would ask voters to amend the state constitution to decriminalize marijuana.

Auditor Allison Ball is in the process of investigating the Office of Cannabis for how it has conducted its licensing lottery.

As Kentucky Public Radio reported in 2024, a large majority of the businesses that won medical marijuana cultivator, processor and dispensary licenses in that year’s lotteries were formed by out-of-state residents, with most listing executives that own, are employed by or are affiliated with large marijuana companies that operate in other states.

The application and lottery process for awarding cannabis licenses was strongly criticized by several hemp farmers within Kentucky, who argued they were shut out from winning any of the cultivator licenses because deep-pocketed companies were able to rig the process with a flood of expensive applications.

A specific source of criticism about the licensing process involved Dark Horse Cannabis, whose executive created hundreds of companies in Kentucky ahead of the application deadline.

As first reported by KPR, these companies then submitted hundreds of expensive applications — at a cost of roughly $2.5 million — ultimately winning four dispensary licenses, one large cultivator license and one processor license.

Dark Horse Cannabis and its executive who formed companies obtaining licenses in Kentucky stated that no rules were broken by him or the company, as they only followed the application process set up by the Beshear administration.