Office of Cannabis Management launches statewide listening tour by meeting with Pine County officials

The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management launched a statewide listening tour on Thursday with a meeting with Pine County officials.

OCM Executive Director Eric Taubel joined WCMP for an interview about Pine County's position in the state cannabis industry, the goals for the listening tour, and what's coming for OCM in 2026.

"The office is starting its 2026 connecting with community listening tour, where we're going around the state talking to local officials, cannabis license holders, and people who are interested or excited about the cannabis industry," Taubel explained.

The first stop brought Taubel to Pine County, where the first state cannabis business license was issued to Brook Park microbusiness Herb Quest, LLC, on June 18, 2025.

"We wanted to stop at the county where we actually gave our first license," Taubel said. "The first cannabis license in Minnesota went to a farm in Pine County growing cannabis outdoors, so we thought it'd be a great opportunity to check in about nine months into that first license and see how it's going with the county. Hear what they're hearing, see what their concerns are, and talk about what we can kind of do together to advance the cannabis industry over the next couple of years."

Taubel said OCM has taken a licensing approach to empower businesses to choose "how and when they open."

"The Pine County business being first was really a reflection of that business operator having taken a lot of necessary steps prior to even application to be ready to go kind of almost as soon as we were able to issue that first license," Taubel said.

Since then, Taubel said OCM has seen "a number of other operators in Pine County" have opened cultivation facilities.

Taubel added that those early license holders in the area speaks to "a community and a leadership organization that's interested in helping businesses."

"In some ways, Pine County is sort of becoming a bit of a cultivation hub for cannabis in Minnesota," Taubel said.

Taubel explained that licensed Pine County cannabis businesses are well-positioned in a geographical sense to service the Twin City's metro area to Duluth and further north.

"There are some advantages if you're growing product here of having multiple markets you can service," he said.

OCM is also about six months out after starting adult-use sales, and Taubel said sales figures have increased month-over-month from that starting point.

"We're also at a pretty steady state of 10, 15, 20 new licenses every month added to the system," Taubel said. "So we're in the process of moving from a really early market, with more demand than supply, and starting to move into that space where we're going to match supply up with demand."

Maturing the market and continuing a "strong and robust grant program" — including community reinvestment funding and assisting residents interested in cannabis farming — are two of OCM's primary focuses in 2026.

"Both of those grant programs are really important to us, because we think about providing more than just a cannabis market, but reinvesting in communities and creating job opportunities for Minnesotans," Taubel said.

Taubel explained that the goal of OCM's listening tour is to "get a sense of what Minnesotans are thinking about when they think about cannabis."

"We're the Office of Cannabis Management, and certainly a big part of that is about building the cannabis industry, but it's also about understanding and respecting the opinions of Minnesotans who maybe are wary of cannabis in their community, wary of cannabis businesses being near them," Taubel said.

Taubel added that bringing the cannabis market into a regulated space instead of an illegal space helps to increase public safety with tested, clearly labeled products.

Taubel said that meeting with Pine County officials was a "wonderful time," and added that getting local governments' perspective helps inform OCM's efforts.

"I know for local government officials, who are not just doing cannabis but doing every kind of business work, hearing their experiences and understanding their road blocks and challenges really is good for us to better support those local officials," he said.