Last night, we introduced you to a new group working to help medical cannabis license holders kick off their businesses.

Tonight, we have more about the Kentucky cannabis industry Alliance and the woman leading the charge.

Former state representative and House Minority Whip Rachel Roberts.

Kentucky Edition caught up with Roberts at her yoga studio in Newport.

Information.

So up until a couple of weeks ago, most people knew me as Representative Roberts or Whip Roberts.

I served in House minority leadership.

I volunteer, nearly retired myself at the end of last year.

So December 31st was my last day in that role, and I transitioned right over into this role, which is really exciting to me because it's building something from the ground up.

We're launching this at the same time the cannabis industry is going legal and getting itself set up in the state of Kentucky.

She This product must be grown in Kentucky, processed in Kentucky, tested in Kentucky, and then sold in Kentucky dispensaries.

And that process is just going to take time.

You can't stare at a seedling and make it grow any faster.

Right.

So all of these folks are in place to start the cultivation process as quickly as they can.

And my job really is to ensure the success of the license holders to make sure that they have what they need to succeed and to thrive.

And everybody's singular mission who's working on this right now is to get a safe, reliable, consistent product to the patients of Kentucky as quickly as we possibly can, because they've been waiting far too long for this product.

There's still this growing process that has to take place.

There's also the regulation of the facilities.

So once your facility is ready to be opened, the state has to come in and inspect it.

So that process will take a little time, too.

I don't expect everybody to be at full capacity any time within the next couple of months.

I think that will be several months down the road.

But I do think that we'll start to see some product coming into dispensaries in Kentucky this summer.

Every region of Kentucky is going to have dispensaries.

There will be some places where patients are going to have to drive a bit to reach their local dispensary.

But it really was broken out by geography and by population and so it was really thoughtful the way that dispensary licenses have been distributed.

Now, for instance, I live in Campbell County.

Campbell County has one of the dispensary licenses.

Campbell County's a long, skinny county, so it will make a big difference to patients in Campbell County if the dispensary ends up located in Alexandria or Dayton, Kentucky.

So we have yet to see where where the dispensaries will actually locate themselves.

Most of them, from my experience talking to people this week, they're in the midst of either identifying those locations or signing the leases for them right now.

You know, a lot of this is like starting any other business.

You start any other business, you need a bank account, you need an insurance provider, you need accounting help.

But because it's the cannabis industry, it's so heavily regulated, it's not like you can just necessarily call up your your corner local bank and they're going to be able to help you with this.

So those are really the questions that we've been fielding right now and and helping people with.

I've been so involved in the policy for so long.

I'm also a business owner.

So this is at its heart a business alliance.

Right.

You can think of it like the Chamber of Commerce for cannabis businesses.

And so having someone in this role who understands what it is to start a business, who understands the policy part of it, and also understands the leadership part that's going to be necessary to pull everybody together so that we're all working with a unified voice for the betterment of the patients of Kentucky.

What patients can expect right now is that they can start meeting with providers who are certified providers to get their medical certification and then to apply with the state to get their medical cannabis card so that when a few months from now there is product in dispensaries, those patients are completely ready to be customers.

Roberts said patients interested in applying to be a medical marijuana cardholder should visit the Office of Medical Cannabis website.

More than 800 Kentuckians are certified card holders since January 1st, and Roberts expects that number will increase exponentially in the weeks to come.