Minnesota’s Medical Marijuana Providers Report Big Losses in 2015

Minnesota has only two licensed medical marijuana manufacturers, that operate a total of eight dispensaries. And after their first full year in operation, both have reported millions of dollars in losses. In 2015, Minnesota Medical Solutions reported a loss of $3 million.

In 2014, Minnesota Medical Solutions reported losses totaling $542,000, according to MPR News. The second manufacturer, LeafLine Labs reported losses totaling $2.2 million in 2015.

Minnesota only has 10 approved qualifying conditions for medical marijuana and disallows the use of marijuana flower, is hindering the program’s sustainability. The recent addition of intractable pain (chronic pain) to the qualifying conditions list leaves the manufacturers and program to believe that the patient base will soon increase drastically.

The high cost of taking flower and processing it into pills and vapors makes it hard for manufacturers in the restricted program to stay afloat.

Kyle Kingsley of Minnesota Medical Solutions said, “In year one, we needed to strike a balance between minimizing expenses and building a company that would be financially sustainable over the long haul.”

After factoring in the high cost of operations, Minnesota Medical Solutions made $0.65 per dollar it spent to manufacture the approved pills, oils, and vaporizers.

Lobbyist Patrick McClellan said, “It’s not sustainable. I think the program itself was designed to fail. I think anybody who didn’t know this was kidding themselves.”

Kinglsey, on the other hand, is optimistic, saying: “We’ve never seen our patient count grow faster than it has this month, so we are feeling cautiously optimistic about the future.”