“What if you didn’t know who your competitors were? No websites, no information; there’s nothing,” said Stroh. “That’s what we have to overcome.”
The state, too, is facing a slew of unknowns.
“It’s been a wild ride,” said spokesman Mikhail Carpenter of the WSLCB. “We all woke up the day after the election and went, ‘Wow, alright, time to deal with marijuana.’”
Carpenter said that Washington state has had to start from scratch and that, though many think the state can simply look to Colorado for lessons in running this new industry, Colorado had already boasted a sophisticated medical marijuana system that just doesn’t exist here.
The next step is establishing 334 retail locations that will be spread across the state, based on consumption estimates and population. Because of stipulations in Initiative 502, a limited number of retailers will be allowed to sell marijuana and all will be strictly monitored. Recipients of these 334 retail licenses – determined via lottery – will be revealed later today by the WSLCB.
“A lot of people tend to lose sight of the fact that we are not creating a free market,” said Carpenter. “We’re creating a controlled market.”
The control doesn’t bother Stroh. He will be the first legal marijuana producer in Clark County, with his farm located in the industrial section of Orchards. CannaMan Farms has been operational since March 19 and is currently processing marijuana plants with the expectation that retailers will be open to sell marijuana in early July.
“It’s farming, so we have to test everything out,” he said. “Like anything, there are growing pains. It’s exciting; it’s interesting. It’s something that nobody else has really done legally throughout the state.”
Perhaps most interesting is the change in conventional growing infrastructure legalization has brought on. Stroh said marijuana growers used to never have more than 99 plants because, in the event they were caught, there was a mandatory level of sentencing for drug trafficking for 100 or more plants.
“It’s very different for us [thanks to Initiative 502],” he said. “In a 4×8-feet bed, we grow 100 plants, with the potential of growing thousands.”
But with any new business venture comes grave risk – perhaps more so in one that comes with such unavoidable baggage.
“My assumption would be a continued acceptance of [marijuana sales],” said Stroh, “but you never know what may happen that could be a catastrophic event for the industry.”
{jathumbnail off}
