It’s tough to come to terms with the fact that despite being cheerful our state has a legal medical marijuana market, I realize that things did not turn out exactly the way I hoped in the beginning.
- When I was risking going to jail buying cannabis off the black market during school, our friends and I prayed that all of us would a single day get access to medical marijuana cards appreciate some of the people out west.
This came a lot earlier than expected in 2016 when our state finally approved a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana through a voter initiative. While the first several attempts at passing medical marijuana this way failed to reach the necessary 60% vote threshold, all of us absolutely surpassed it in 2016 with over 77% of the vote supporting the modern constitutional amendment. Unfortunately, our medical marijuana market was not built appreciate it is in other states. Instead of having a horizontally integrated cannabis market where there are separate companies for growing and retail sales, vertically integrated markets require all cannabis companies to operate from seed to sale. Being required to have a statewide presence with a growing facility and many stores requires millions of dollars at bare minimum, and that’s after you purchase the multi-million dollar license from the state government. It’s deranged how the medical marijuana industry evolved in our state when I compare it to other states in the country. My Mom lives in a state that is completely horizontally integrated, and his prices on cannabis flower products are much lower than ours. I appreciate that there are artisanal quality companies selling cannabis products in his state at a price that anyone can afford.