On the West Coast, the cannabis industry has taken a trifecta of whammies\u2014market saturation, the related issue of market dominance by multi-state operators (MSOs) and finally, a cultural-conservative backlash in some rural areas. Montana is feeling the market glut\u2014which may be exacerbated by illicit products coming in from Oregon and California. But Montana cannabis operators say they feel little concern for the other two factors. This must come as a disappointment to the state\u2019s extremely dogged, if not terribly effective, anti-cannabis forces.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This spring, a bill in the statehouse in Helena would have shut down adult-use marijuana sales across Montana\u2014effectively repealing legalization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 546,\u00a0introduced<\/a>\u00a0in March by Sen. Keith Regier (R-Kalispell), focused on \u201celiminating adult-use dispensaries.\u201d But it also would have placed harsh restrictions on Montana\u2019s medical program. It would have raised the tax on medical-sector sales from 4% to 20% and halved the number of mature plants a patient or provider can have at home from two to one.<\/p>\n It would also have lowered the potency cap for medical cannabis from 35% THC to a mere 10%. Similar caps would have been placed on edibles and extracts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The text of the bill said it aimed to \u201creduce the demand for marijuana sales\u201d in Montana.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fortunately, SB 546 was short-lived. Days after it was introduced, it was\u00a0shelved<\/a>\u00a0by the Senate Business, Labor & Economic Affairs Committee. Opponents pointed to the tax revenues that would be lost. According to the state revenue department, Montana cannabis providers did $300 million in sales in 2022, the first year of the legal adult-use market.\u00a0<\/p>\n That same week, a bill to ban cannabis advertising in Montana similarly died. House Bill 351, sponsored by Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe (R-Billings),\u00a0would have prohibited<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cpublication, dissemination, solicitation, or circulation of visual, oral, or written communication\u201d that could \u201cdirectly induce\u201d someone to buy or consume cannabis. This was to include both outdoor signage and websites, with the partial exception of listings in online directories.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it was\u00a0voted down<\/a>\u00a0by the Senate Business, Labor & Economic Affairs Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n Also\u00a0voted down<\/a>\u00a0by the Senate was HB 304, which\u00a0would have mandated<\/a> that growing be confined to indoor or greenhouse, with mandatory air filtration systems for \u201codor neutralization.\u201d Growers protested this as an undue economic burden for small operators.<\/p>\n Most cultivation in the state is in greenhouses or hoop-houses anyway, due to the short growing season. New licenses under the adult-use program are to be confined to indoor (including greenhouse) due to the hemp industry\u2019s concerns about cross-pollination. However, the big majority of the state\u2019s adult-use operators are holdovers from the medical program, with any outdoor cultivation grandfathered in.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Montana Cannabis Guild<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Montana Cannabis Industry Association<\/a>, despite some rivalry between the two groups, were united in opposing these measures.\u00a0<\/p>\n Montana voters passed Initiative 190, amending the state constitution to allow personal possession and an adult-use market, in November 2020. This was 16 years after voters approved Initiative 148, which established the state medical marijuana program. There have been\u00a0repeated efforts<\/a> by cultural-conservative forces to shut down the medical and adult-use markets alike. But thus far, the state\u2019s libertarian spirit\u2014assisted by fiscal pragmatism\u2014has prevailed.\u00a0<\/p>\n In contrast, two measures aimed at protecting Montana\u2019s industry from feared MSO predation met with success.<\/p>\n At the end of May, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0HB 903, significantly raising license renewal fees based on how many stores a single cannabis business operates.<\/p>\n Beginning January 1, Montana cannabis retailers will see their licensing and renewal fees take an\u00a0exponential jump<\/a>, thanks to the bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Hopkins (R-Missoula). Businesses will pay $5,000 to renew the license on a first retail shop\u2014but then $5,000 more per each additional location. That is, an additional $10,000 for a second store, an additional $15,000 for the third store, et cetera<\/em>. Up to now, retailers have been paying a flat renewal fee of $5,000 per location.<\/p>\n Gianforte also\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0HB 128, sponsored by Rep. Joshua Kassmier (R-Fort Benton), which\u00a0extends<\/a>\u00a0a moratorium on new adult-use licenses. Under previous law, only already-licensed medical marijuana businesses could be licensed for adult-use sales until July 1. The new law sets a new date of June 30, 2025.<\/p>\n HB 128 was the result of dialogue between senators and representatives on the\u00a0Interim Economic Affairs Committee, state regulators, and industry stakeholders to find consensus on changes needed for the state\u2019s industry. As Montana Public Radio<\/a> reports, opposition \u201clargely came from legislators who oppose recreational cannabis sales in any fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n And while franchises are permitted, all actual license-holders must be state residents under regulations of the Revenue Department\u2019s\u00a0Cannabis Control Division. There\u00a0are currently<\/a> 432 dispensaries statewide, under 270 licenses.<\/p>\n Matt Kleman<\/a> runs\u00a0Cold Smoke Organics<\/a>\u00a0in Bozeman, which opened as\u00a0Natrapeutics<\/a>\u00a0under the medical program in 2012. With a degree in plant biology from Montana State University, he is engaging in organic cultivation as well as hash production and retail sales. Under the medical program, before the passage of 190, all operations had to be thusly vertically integrated.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Due to Montana\u2019s short growing season, it is indoor cultivation. But Kleman is proud of what he calls his \u201cliving soil beds,\u201d which he has been developing for years with \u201cdry amendments,\u201d or added organic materials. \u201cI mulch in unused biomass as carbon source for next round,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a rollercoaster since we opened, with these senate bills that were repeal in disguise\u2014trying to undermine cannabis in the state and get it shut down,\u201d Kleman says of the legal situation.\u201d But it\u2019s never got anywhere. And here we are, doing business and going forward as an industry. You don\u2019t go against the will of the voters in Montana. So I\u2019m used to it and take comfort in the fact that we\u2019ve made it through so much.\u201d<\/p>\n Kleman takes pride in the ethic of local control that prevails in the state. \u201cUnder the medical program, there was a whole bunch of little fish and a few really big players who are now in the recreational market. But there\u2019s still not a lot of MSO presence. There\u2019s a Cookies franchise in Missoula, but for the most part, we\u2019re not feeling the pressure. Montana has kept its be-a-yokel-and-buy-local mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n On the new law raising fees for operating multiple storefronts, Kleman says, \u201cIt hurts the pockets of the big players, but it doesn\u2019t hurt the mom-and-pop stores at all. The stores where they know the people coming in by name, as opposed to the big operations where you\u2019re just another number in line. I want to maintain that integrity and small-scale model. That\u2019s what I think works, and I\u2019d like to see it stay that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Kleman adds, \u201cMontana wants to keep it within our borders and support us little guys. Now we can continue to build our brand without the pressure of competition from the MSOs for another two years. We\u2019re not feeling the pressure we see on the West Coast of big players flooding the market and setting off a race to the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n Jay Bostrom operates\u00a0Dancing Goat Gardens<\/a>\u00a0with his wife Kim, named for their farm outside Missoula. Their dispensary in town boasts that it offers \u201cMissoula\u2019s only permaculture-grown cannabis.\u201d They also have retail outlets in nearby Havre and Seeley Lake. They additionally have a manufacturing facility in Missoula, producing pre-rolls and \u201csolvent-less live rosin products.\u201d These are made with ice water, heat and pressure\u2014from fresh-frozen flower, with the flavonoids and terpenes perfectly preserved.<\/p>\n Bostrom emphasizes that all their flower is grown with \u201cregenerative farming practices\u2014in the ground under greenhouses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes for a much better product,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Dancing Goat is also pioneering methods to get around the limits imposed by Montana\u2019s short growing season. This fall, they plan to break ground on\u00a0walipini greenhouses<\/a>, which are partially subterranean and \u201cuse natural geothermal dynamics to heat and cool the space, so there\u2019s no need for h-vac.\u201d The method was developed centuries ago by the Aymara indigenous people of the Bolivian altiplano, and the word\u00a0walipini<\/em>\u00a0means \u201cplace of warmth\u201d in their language.<\/p>\n Bostrom also points to the work of farmer Russ Finch, who has developed \u201cgreenhouses in the snow<\/a>\u201d on his homestead in the small town of Alliance, Nebraska. He\u2019s actually been growing oranges and other citrus with this method that similarly uses geothermal heat, delivering it through a system of tubes implanted in the earth.<\/p>\n Bostrom looks askance at the exponential jump in license fees and the mandate for vertical integration, perceiving that these measures bottleneck the growth of the industry. \u201cI view horizontal collaboration as the way forward,\u201d he says. \u201cWe want to build good wholesale client relationships with the retailers. After all, Heinz ketchup doesn\u2019t grow tomatoes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But he, too, is confident that the backlash will be kept at bay. \u201cCooler heads will prevail,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a constitutional right to possess marijuana in our state; you\u2019re not gonna undo that.\u201d<\/p>\n The post Montana Beats Back Anti-Cannabis Backlash<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On the West Coast, the cannabis industry has taken a trifecta of whammies\u2014market saturation, the related issue of market dominance by multi-state operators (MSOs) and finally, a cultural-conservative backlash in some rural areas. Montana is feeling the market glut\u2014which may be exacerbated by illicit products coming in from Oregon andContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4188,363,159,16903,50,1588,17191,17318,90,17319,1918],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67073,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67072\/revisions\/67073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Beating Back the MSO Threat<\/h4>\n
Independent Operators Speak\u00a0<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Montana Beats Back Anti-Cannabis Backlash<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"