Delaware Cannabis Licensing: Adult-Use Future and Medical Marijuana Past
Delaware has had an active medical cannabis industry since 2015, but now the adult-use market is opening up. Every state has its own way of rolling out legalization, and in the case of DE, they are using a lottery, once you submit qualifying documents. This has the downside of making it a random process, which disadvantages experienced applicants, but it has the upside of making it a lucrative market for those who win, given that the license numbers will be limited.
We at Cultivation Sector Consulting have been writing cannabis licensing documents since 2017, and we have helped entrepreneurs obtain and maintain licenses in California, Mississippi, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland and New York, to name a few. We have a good sense of what regulatory agencies are looking for and we have plenty of experience reading and understanding cannabis regulations and licensing requirements.
What sets us apart? We work on an a la carte basis, offering templates for DIY applicants and doing custom writing work for applicants who need extra support. This saves you thousands of dollars over using a full-service Delaware cannabis consultant or cannabis law firm, both of whom typically charge over $20,000 to do everything for you as a package.
What are the Delaware Cannabis License Requirements?
Retail, cultivation and cannabis manufacturing applications will be assessed based on the following criteria:
1. The applicant’s comprehensive business plan, including an annual budget and pro forma financial statements.
2. The applicant’s plans for safety, security, and the prevention of diversion.
3. The applicant’s plans for operations, training, and staffing, including all of the following:
a. A social responsibility plan outlining diversity goals, including plans to recruit and hire people of color, women, and veterans and to support their ownership and promotion within the organization, as well as the percent of employees it plans to hire from within the respective city or region of the State.
b. A plan to provide a safe, healthy, and economically beneficial working environment with fair scheduling practices, family-supporting wages, and benefits for its employees.
c. Any criminal, civil, or regulatory history encountered by other entities the applicant and managing officers have previously controlled or managed.
Additionally, for applications for a DE cultivation license and DE cannabis manufacturing license, an Environment and Sustainability plan and a Quality Assurance Plan, including efforts it will take to minimize the environmental impact, and resources needs of its facilities and other business operations, such as plans to minimize water usage, employing organic cultivation methods, and adoption of other sustainable business practices.
We provide highly sophisticated templates that require almost no customization (except the business plan), so you can submit soon after you make your purchase.
Where Can I Find the Delaware Cannabis Regulations?
Right here, and more are expected to be published in the coming weeks.
What Will A Delaware Cannabis License Cost?
The Delaware cannabis license costs will include the following: the application fee is $1000 for social equity applicants and $5000 for standard applicants, and biennial license fees (every 2 years) are $2500-$10,000 depending on license type and canopy size.
How Many Cannabis Licenses Will Be Granted in DE and How Do I Start?
The following number of DE cannabis licenses will be granted in each category:
Delaware Cultivation License:
Facilities less than 2500 square feet:
* 20 microbusiness licenses
* 10 social equity licenses.
Facilities more than 2500 square feet:
* 20 open licenses
* 10 social equity licenses
The Delaware cultivation license will be the easiest to win because fewer people apply for this license due to the costs of build-out and expertise required, but there are also more DE cultivation licenses available than any other license type.
Delaware Cannabis Manufacturing License:
* 10 open licenses
* 10 social equity licenses
* 10 microbusiness licenses
Delaware Dispensary License – Delaware Cannabis Retail License:
* 15 open licenses
* 15 social equity licenses
Delaware Cannabis Testing Facility Licenses:
* 3 open licenses.
* 2 social equity licenses
What’s Different About Social Equity and Microbusiness Applicants?
To qualify for a Delaware cannabis microbusiness license, these are the criteria:
- The business must be 51% owned and controlled by 1 or more individuals who have resided in Delaware for at least 5 of the preceding 15 years;
- The business must employ no more than 10 employees;
- A cultivation business must not operate a facility with a cannabis plant grow canopy area greater than 2,500 square feet and must not possess more than 1,000 marijuana plants each month.
There are no microbusiness licenses for Delaware cannabis dispensary applicants. There are only microbusiness applications for DE cannabis cultivation licenses and cannabis manufacturing licenses.
For social equity licenses, you can qualify if you meet one of the following criteria:
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- The applicant/s must have 51% ownership and be controlled by 1 or more individuals who have resided for at least 5 of the preceding 10 years in a disproportionately impacted area.
OR
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- The applicant/s must have 51% ownership and control by 1 or more individuals who meet one of the following criteria:
1) Was convicted of or adjudicated delinquent for any marijuana-related offense except any of the following:
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- Delivery to a minor.
- Any marijuana offense with a Tier 3 quantity of marijuana as defined in § 4751(c) of Title 16.
- The functional equivalent of the offenses described ABOVE under the laws of the United States, any state or territory of the United States, or any other country.
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OR
2) Is married to or the child of a person who was convicted of or adjudicated delinquent for any marijuana-related offense.
Here’s What We Can Do For You:
Here at CS Consulting, we can provide anything referred to above as a plan or procedure, and we can create your business plan, budget and pro forma financial statements. Where applicable, documents will contain Delaware-specific cannabis regulatory citations, aiming to provide what we think, based on our experience, the regulatory agency is looking for.
What if My Delaware Cannabis Application Looks Like Someone Else’s?
This is a common question for us to receive. Since Delaware is planning a lottery process, it is not important to distinguish your DE cannabis application from everyone else’s; the information in your DE cannabis application must meet a certain bar, and how it compares to others does not matter. We will be providing you high quality templates, and you can customize them as much as you like, but you can also do very little and probably be just fine.
Keep in mind that law firms and comprehensive cannabis consulting companies are also working off of templates, so there will always be some measure of redundancy from one Delaware cannabis application to another since they are all addressing the same topics around the same set of regulations.
Will I Win a DE Cannabis License if I Use Your Templates?
We can guarantee that you will qualify for the lottery if you use our materials. This is mainly because DE will allow a “cure period” where any errors on the initial application can be fixed. We will fix application deficiencies at no charge. We do our best, based on our experience, to ensure that each topic covered is comprehensive, accurate, and matched up with all of the relevant DE marijuana regulations from the state. We consider ourselves diligent, honest experts in the field of cannabis regulatory compliance and licensing, and we have been successful in several other states, over the course of 7 years, always getting better at what we do.
We cannot, however, guarantee that anyone will win a cannabis license in Delaware because the lottery is expected to be truly random.
The cannabis laws in DE are similar to some other states where licenses will be limited, meaning that anyone who obtains a license will likely do quite well and wholesale prices will stay high until the state further liberalizes the system, which usually takes a few years or more.
How to Get a Delaware Dispensary License
Get your documents ready, submit, qualify and cross your fingers that you’ll win the lottery. The regulations indicate that future lottery rounds will be held, so if you don’t win the first time, you can keep trying.
The most common adult-use cannabis license sought out by applicants in any state is always the cannabis retail license, because operating as DE dispensary license holder doesn’t require a high level of experience the way a DE cultivation license or DE cannabis manufacturing license does. The learning curve for dispensaries is shorter because operating a medical marijuana or recreational dispensary is more like running any retail business, but with much more intensive security and inventory control requirements.
In the upcoming recreational market, purchasers of cannabis won’t need a cannabis card or a medical marijuana card to make a purchase. They only need a valid government-issued ID to prove that they are over 21 years old. The Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Enforcement is the State department that will handle enforcement of the rules and regulations involved with administering the program. This agency is responsible for the public health, safety and security of all cannabis products, as well as the security and oversight of commercial facilities.
Delaware cannabis will be a booming industry, generating plenty of tax revenue for the state and finally allowing all adults to be trusted with cannabis, which is far safer than alcohol.
We can get started on your documents as soon as we have a published application process. Stay in touch!
