Commissioners continue to prepare for medical marijuana to become legal

Paducah's Board of Commissioners is continuing to take steps to prepare for medical marijuana to become legal in January.

The latest move is to address language and provide guidelines in the city's zoning code to cover the five types of land use associated with it. Since Kentucky law requires that no marijuana be transported into the state, all medicinal marijuana must be grown, processed, tested, and sold within the borders of the Commonwealth. With those requirements, preparations must be made for the zoning of farms for cultivation, facilities to produce, and process the product, as well as to test and dispense it.

The zoning language in Paducah's ordinance and suggested by the state says that dispensaries will not be allowed within "1,000 feet of an existing school or daycare." They also cannot be next door to a residential building or within a mile of another dispensary. Kentucky has been divided into eleven medical marijuana regions. With the exceptions of Fayette and Jefferson Counties, there will be four dispensary licenses issued in each region and there can be only one dispensary per county.   

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services is overseeing the program and issuing licenses for the different types of businesses associated with medicinal marijuana. The application process for all five types of businesses is underway.