Compacts
In establishing Minnesota’s cannabis law, the Legislature called on the governor to negotiate intergovernmental agreements—cannabis compacts—with Tribal Nations sharing territory with Minnesota to promote a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship between the state and Tribes that enhances public health and safety, ensures a lawful and well-regulated cannabis market, encourages economic development, and provides financial benefits to both the state and Tribal Nations (Minnesota Statutes, section 3.9228).
Tribal-state cannabis compacts address jurisdictional issues related to the medical cannabis and adult-use cannabis industries and create a legal agreement between the state and Tribal Nation, establishing the terms and conditions to regulate the operation of Tribal cannabis businesses off Tribally regulated lands.
Compacting negotiations between the State of Minnesota and Tribal Nations are non-public data while they are ongoing. Under Minnesota Statutes, section 3.9228, subdivision 5, once executed, compacts will be publicly accessible below on this webpage.
A model for multi-jurisdictional cannabis markets
Off-reservation Tribal enterprises and local control
Prioritizing public health and safety through product testing and tracking
The Tribal-state cannabis compacts require product testing to verify compliance with public health and safety standards set by OCM, ensuring uniformity across the state market. This includes cannabis products undergoing agreed upon testing for potency, stability, homogeneity, and contaminants at state-licensed testing labs before entering the state market. Cannabis products cultivated, manufactured or packaged for final sale within regulated lands of a Tribal Nation that enter the state market are also subject to the state’s surveillance testing program.
Until there are state-licensed testing facilities, cannabis products sold by Tribal enterprises will be tested by one of the two existing medical cannabis testing facilities in Minnesota using the state’s technical standards for sampling and testing cannabis products.
Like state-licensees, Tribes and their licensees will utilize seed-to-sale tracking to ensure that regulators can see the full lifecycle of a cannabis plant or product. All products must be entered into the state’s seed-to-sale system when they move off Tribal lands.