Eighty-one farmers have applied to receive one of 10 state licenses to legally grow cannabis and supply the state’s nascent medical marijuana program, giving each applicant roughly 1 in 8 odds of cultivating crops to meet the state’s demand.
But exactly how significant that demand will be is unknown, as Utah’s law restricts legal marijuana use to a smaller pool of qualifying patients than a ballot initiative approved by voters last year, and because many Utahns are culturally and ideologically skeptical of what is still an illegal drug under federal law.