A number of marijuana business officials and advocates characterize today’s cannabis industry as figurative warfare, pitting large companies seeking to dominate the market against smaller operators and entrepreneurs just wanting a foot in the door.
“I think it kind of is ‘big business’ versus everybody else,” said Matt Abel, a Detroit attorney who has been involved in legalization efforts and the industry for more than 20 years.
Consider the following within the past three years:
- A fight in Michigan between the Cannabis Manufacturers Association – comprised of several large companies – and others in the state’s medical marijuana industry over cultivation rights for caregivers, testing protocols and a proposal to issue microbusiness licenses.
- Moves by multistate operators in Arizona and Illinois to allegedly take control of social equity licenses or block efforts to boost the permissible canopy size for craft growers, respectively.
- An attempt in 2019 in New York by a handful of MMJ licensees to outlaw home cultivation.
- A new report by the Minority Cannabis Business Association, which identified state-level license caps as a barrier to equity, a policy that is generally favored by larger marijuana companies and multistate operators.
- Opposition in Delaware to a recreational marijuana legalization billby the state’s existing MMJ businesses – including Columbia Care – which argued the bill as written would “decimate” their operations. Adam Goers, Columbia Care’s senior vice president of corporate affairs, countered the New York-based MSO doesn’t oppose legalization but instead had issues with how that bill was written. He also wrote in an email that Columbia Care supports adult-use programs that “set social equity businesses up for success.”
But lumping multistate operators into one bucket is an oversimplification and risks villainizing good actors, countered Jason Erkes, chief communications officer for Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based MSO.
“I don’t think you can lump all the MSOs together as having a singular agenda or supporting/opposing things for the same reasons – it’s all in the details,” Erkes said.
He added that Cresco is supportive of expanding craft-grow operations in its home state of Illinois but said the measure needs additional safeguards to ensure the licenses remain in the hands of minority entrepreneurs.
“There is a misperception around ‘big cannabis’ that we’re keen to correct,” Bayern said.
“Our scale means that we can invest in the highest-quality products, cultivation and processing facilities and in our team members and our communities – so that we set industry-leading standards. …
“It also means that we can invest in product research and development to continue to bring new, innovative products to market.”
