So, what’s going on with weed these days in Minnesota? A lot, actually.
Hemp-derived products like gummies and seltzers have been legal for around three years now, some bars have added THC bubbly to their menus, weed stores have popped up all over town, and a THC-themed restaurant has come and gone. (RIP, Hi Flora!)
Meanwhile, a new cottage industry is quietly thriving on the down-low, with home chef operators and bakers hosting pop-ups at breweries, selling colorful treats online, and making sure local fests like the MN Legacy Cup stay fun.
And then there’s flower. Tribal dispensaries have already opened, and we’ll be talking with some of those shops next month. But we have yet to see if the Office of Cannabis Management can handle round two of the massive influx of business hopefuls in search of a license or a lottery win. That department has had some mishaps and messups, from a disastrous director pick to the canceling of the equity lottery, but this is a new world and regulating an economy that doesn't exist yet is no small task.
To examine the state of all things marijuana in Minnesota, we reached out to the people actively engaged in the community. Our lineup:
- Jen Randolph Reise, a lawyer-turned-consultant, who recently founded Northstar Cannabis Consulting
- Kelly Sander, who started his THC beverage company, Ganja Skoden, with two of his friends
- Cottage industry weed baker Natasha Givens of NattyKakes
- Hemp House CEO Nathan Young
- Politico’s cannabis editor Paul Demko
- Flipside Dispensary co-founder Josh Fellman
- Matt DeLong, a Star Tribune editor on the weed beat who compiles Nuggets, a weekly email about the legal world of THC
How and why did you get into the weed biz (or for some of you, covering the weed biz)?
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: I had been working as a lawyer to the cannabis industry. This month, I pivoted, and I launched North Star Cannabis Consulting to serve entrepreneurs in the Minnesota cannabis industry, and also to be able to do more writing and talking about the Minnesota cannabis industry, which I love. Originally, I chose to focus my business law practice on this industry because I had a teenage kid who was greatly helped by medical cannabis. I both saw how powerful it was and how difficult it was to find good information and access to quality products, so as a mom I was excited to help this industry advance.
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: We got into it, the three of us [Sander, Leiataua Dr. Robert Jon Peterson, and Richard Nicholson], to represent and get our stories out, our backgrounds out, and put out a good product. Our product is tied to more of a cultural aspect than just the getting high part of it.
Natasha Givens, founder of THC bakery NattyKakes: I’m an art director turned baker. I took my baking business fulltime shortly before the pandemic. I truly believed in the medicinal power of it. As the pandemic and the George Floyd riots unfolded, a lot of my customer base were first responders, specifically firefighters who were buying caramels and edibles to help at night for sleep, for anxiety, and for other ailments.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: My first experience with the business side of cannabis was all the way back in 2012. I was living in Seattle and working in design and advertising when the first adult-use market in the country went live. I had an opportunity to brand some of the first edibles ever to hit the market, and thought it was just a gig. Even back then I was convinced that someone was going to create the Starbucks of cannabis; fast forward 12 years later, nobody has. I took that as my cue to try to build the most-trusted, well-known brand in the Midwest as the Minnesota market was standing up.
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: I pitched Politico on the idea of creating dedicated cannabis policy coverage way back in 2018. My main argument: It was an important emerging issue with big public health and criminal justice ramifications that wasn’t being given the type of serious coverage that it warranted. We launched our three-person cannabis team in August 2019.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: [My wife and business partner] Tess and I have been all over the country and it was always fun to be able to buy legal weed if it was available. As Minnesota got closer to legalization, we put our skills together: Tess doing all the brand strategy, concept work, social—pretty much everything—and me using my background on the business side of things. The idea was to make a neighborhood dispensary that was not transactional but customer focused, and tied two things we loved together: weed and music.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: In the years leading up to legalization, as it became clear that the issue was gaining traction and bills were starting to be introduced, I started to notice that almost every cannabis story we published got a lot of traffic. It seemed like there was an audience here that was very engaged and hungry for more information, and I suspected it skewed considerably younger than our typical print and online readership.
I thought it would be a fun and interesting experiment to try to build an audience around this topic, so we started having some conversations with other people around the room about maybe dipping our toe in with a cannabis newsletter. My hope was that, if it were successful, it could serve as a roadmap for creating other news products around niche topics. We launched Nuggets that October 2023.
We’re three years in on hemp derived products suddenly (accidentally?) being legal here in MN. That’s very different from how most states went about it. Looking back, do you have any thoughts on how things went down? Pros? Cons?
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: Minnesota has seemingly stumbled its way down one of the country’s most unique paths toward marijuana legalization. The 2022 bill legalizing low-potency, hemp-derived edibles and beverages has created a booming market—with widespread availability in liquor stores, restaurants, and even concert venues—unlike any other in the country. That model, however, is now spreading to other states like Louisiana and Tennessee, with even more states likely to establish legal regulatory frameworks for intoxicating hemp-derived products in the coming years.
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: I think the accidental legalization of hemp-derived THC has been kind of a success story in Minnesota. It allowed breweries and distilleries to jump on this new product, and in some cases, it even saved their businesses. I think it's also a success story in that the industry largely self-regulated and found some good quality control measures that then got codified and translated into legislation in 2023. The HF 100 provisions that regulate the hemp derived industry do a good job of balancing protecting the consumer, ensuring good labeling and safe products, and collecting taxes without being the kind of overregulation that is normal.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: Minnesota gets a lot of flack for how poorly its adult-use cannabis program has been rolled out, but on low-dose hemp products it gets high marks. The wide availability of these products normalizes cannabis usage and gives people inexperienced with the plant a safe and familiar way to try on its effects. Another thing unique to Minnesota is on-premise consumption of hemp beverages. In Minnesota bars, there is more choice than ever—there are traditional options, NA options, and now hemp beverage options. It means everyone can have a good time going out, even if they don't drink.
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: Since we’re small and small batch, we're able to pivot fast to make things work and be compliant. I think bigger companies or national companies may have a harder time doing that.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: I think it’s overall a positive that Minnesota has regulated hemp products so tightly. There are, of course, frustrations with that—packing limits, cannabinoid limits, etc. But making sure customers are getting clean products means the experience will be better and that’s important to us.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: It’s a cliché to say it, but Minnesota really has undertaken an interesting social experiment by taking this intermediate step of legalizing hemp-derived edibles and beverages before legalizing recreational marijuana. I think the low-dose stuff probably piqued the curiosity of a lot of folks who may not have used cannabis that much in the past and folks who are never going to set foot in a dispensary. Now they could buy it in regular stores that they were already shopping at. It may have helped demystify it a bit more quickly.
The flipside of that is the state was pretty much completely unprepared to start regulating the hemp stuff early on, and there were some issues with products that were way too potent being sold on store shelves. Even now, lots of hemp products have not been subjected to the full battery of safety testing required by law. Many are only tested for potency and not contaminants like mold or pesticides. I definitely recommend scanning the QR code on the package and noting what is included in the report that comes up. I think the oversight of the industry still has a long way to go.
What can we learn from experience that could be applied to regulating flower in the coming years?
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: Minnesota is leading the way by having a sensible package of regulation, labeling, testing, taxation. In the rest of the U.S.—well, in legal states—adult-use cannabis regulation is way up. And so now [with flower] we're going to be up there, too. And this gap is causing a number of adult-use cannabis businesses to fail or to turn back around and re-enter in the health market. It is so strange, especially because it's all the same plant, technically, right? It's a very weird example of how law and policy can mess up botany.
Natasha Givens, founder of THC bakery NattyKakes: When I looked at the market nationally, even before Minnesota became legal, I was wondering why there weren't specialty bakeries everywhere in Cali or in Vegas, where it could be a huge hotspot. I found a lot of bakers in those regions are simply still doing it like I am doing it, because the regulations and the laws around edibles are just not conducive to having a bakery. Everything would have to be tested, every piece, every piece of cake, every cupcake. I've been blessed to be able to operate in the way that I have been, but I am looking for an opening to the next level, and I'm not sure it's gonna be there.
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: At the government level, sometimes we just did things too quickly and didn’t think things through to the end. Some of those problems created road bumps in the legalization of full-blown flower, and a lot of a lot of suggestions were not asked for or heard.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: We’re in favor of potency caps, but unless we want the black market to continue to flourish, we need to make sure we aren’t putting unnecessarily low caps on adult use products like flower and vapes. High-potency users shouldn’t have to get their stuff from Oklahoma once we move to adult use.
The media talks about the local beer bubble bursting. Are we also in a weed bubble? Will there be a boom and bust in our local economy? Or do you think THC is on a different economic path?
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: In other legal states, what we have seen is that when dispensaries are finally able to open their doors, the price of flower is extremely high because demand is high but supply is low. And then, after six months to a year, the supply evens out. The price stays pretty high—there's one to two great years where people can actually make money—and then the price of flower begins to drop. Dispensaries start undercutting each other with deals—you get a pre-roll, you get 30% off on Tuesdays—and as the price continues to erode, businesses start to pay. Sometimes they consolidate. Sometimes it’s very messy. I expect that we will see the same kind of price drop over time. As I counsel my clients, I think the trick to setting up a profitable leaf business is controlling your costs from the beginning in preparation for that eventual price drop, as opposed to trying to cut and rightsize when it happens.
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: It's taken the craft beer industry 10 years to get to what the THC industry got to in about three years. It’s possibly a bubble, but I don't feel it's going anywhere. I think it's just going to grow for several more years, if not the next decade, before it hits a plateau.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: [Tess and I] don’t think we’re in a weed bubble. Especially not in Minnesota. Businesses need to react to market trends just like any other industry. But as the market matures I think it’s imperative the federal government reschedules so these businesses can operate like normal. We are already more regulated than any other industry and the archaic scheduling at the federal level makes it so much more difficult to operate.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: There might be a bit of a hemp-derived THC bubble right now. I expect that legal marijuana in Minnesota will follow a similar path as in other legal states. At first there’s a lack of supply and prices are high. As more businesses come online, supply increases and prices drop and that puts more pressure on them, and on cultivators in particular. A lot of businesses won’t make it, and that’s pretty normal. We still haven’t seen a fully mature cannabis market in other states; Colorado and Washington are probably the closest. But it isn’t really clear what equilibrium looks like.
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: The unique reality of cannabis markets is that, because of federal illegality, every state is completely different. There is no interstate commerce and every state has to craft its own rules and regulations. So the level of competition—and what that means for consumers and weed entrepreneurs—varies dramatically from state to state. In Michigan, where there are no limits on business licenses, there are now more than 800 weed shops with some of the lowest prices in the country. Contrast that with New Jersey, where there’s only about 200 licensed shops serving a similar population.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: The beer bubble is bursting because alcohol consumption has hit historic lows across all races, genders, and age groups, but especially younger males. They aren’t completely sober, they’re just choosing options that don’t obliterate their ability to reason and result in a massive hangover the next day. By the numbers, alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs you can consume and cannabis is one of the safest. As stigma around cannabis usage continues to reduce and people seek out safer, healthier alternatives to alcohol, I anticipate the cannabis market, and especially low-dose hemp, to triple in size over the next 10 years.
How do you feel about concerns folks might have about under-regulation? My dork coworker, Jay Boller, is aghast that cans of THC bevs are impulse items at the co-op cash register, for instance.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: I think it’s a real issue that should be taken seriously. If they’re on display in places where they can be easily shoplifted by kids, that isn’t good. And as I noted earlier, lots of hemp-derived products are not receiving the full battery of safety testing required by law. People expect that products being sold legally have been tested and are safe to consume, but the regulation hasn’t caught up to the market.
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: Does it need more regulation? Possibly for safety standards. Liquor stores, for instance, already have the education on how to sell alcohol, how to check IDs, and so on. But spots that aren't already selling adult beverages, that education could be lacking in those spots.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: I could see the state stepping in on that eventually, but it’s really hard to go backwards once precedents are set. The state of Minnesota decided they wanted hemp available at any location that was willing to carry it, and now those locations may rely on that extra revenue.
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: I think kids having access is a thing that we always need to keep our eyes on. We have child-proof packaging, which is a start, and they're also required to have clear labels on them.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: Living in Minnesota is like living in the future. We are the only market with regulated low-dose hemp existing alongside medical cannabis and, soon, adult use cannabis. We are the only regulated market where you can buy hemp products at a grocery store. We are the only regulated market where you can drink hemp beverages at a bar.
This is all new. There is no model. We are writing the rules as we go.
Getting regulation right is critical, because Minnesota has the opportunity to be the model that all other states follow. But I don’t think most regulation requires intervention from the state. I think self-regulation by the leaders and pioneers in this brave new world will yield the best results. State regulation should be focused on shutting down bad actors clearly operating outside of the law, not on telling operators how to run their business.
What are some challenges you predict for the Office of Cannabis Management? It seems like they’ve gotten off to a rocky start…
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: The current interim director, Eric Taubel, is going to have to figure out how to evaluate and approve this next flood of license applications. They set the next application window for February 18 to March 14, so I'm helping a lot of entrepreneurs think through their strategy of what license type they apply for, or how they fix an application that was failed by OCM in the fall. I really hope that OCM has learned from some of their mistakes and will work—especially the social equity applicants—to
get them through the process so that they can do other parts of their business building and not just get mired in the paperwork challenge. Part of what OCM needs to do is to review all those applications fast enough to actually get the market open.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: We should give the OCM some grace. Of the 50+ people working at the OCM, literally only one person has any real world experience working with cannabis. They are building the ship as they fly and it’s not an easy task. That said, I do wish the OCM did a better job of listening to people who actually do have relevant experience, be that other state regulators or experienced operators.
I have been in dozens of meetings with the OCM, and while they are always open to talk, they are rarely open to changing their mind. Almost all of the issues the OCM has run into were loudly called out by cannabis advocates months ahead of time. It’s been beyond frustrating to watch and I hope that this year we see a shift in dialog under the new leadership.
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: I think they're doing a good job so far, and it's going to be an uphill battle no matter what. Obviously, there’s much they could have done better—they're getting sued by everyone and their brother—but it’s got to be hard when so much up in the air. There’s a lot of frustration because it affects so many people and the whole industry all together.
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: Minnesota is facing similar problems that have plagued marijuana market rollouts in states across the country. Most significantly, that means legal fights challenging the process for allocating potentially lucrative weed business licenses. Minnesota has already been hit with several lawsuits that have delayed the lottery for allocating licenses by months. That’s raised questions about exactly when recreational sales at state-licensed stores will begin, with the state now approaching the two-year mark since lawmakers legalized marijuana possession for anyone at least 21 years old. The longer it takes to launch the adult-use market, the harder it is likely to be to disrupt the illicit market that consumers have relied on for years.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: I think [flower] just needs to get rolled out at this point. Problems will pop up; there’s no way to make a perfect cannabis market off the bump but it’s hard to predict issues when we can’t even get to market yet.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: I think the biggest challenges facing the OCM are getting businesses licensed and then regulating them effectively. It’s going to be a massive task inspecting all of these new businesses and making sure products are compliant and all that. They haven’t really outlined how big the agency ultimately needs to be, but I suspect it will need a lot of manpower to be effective.
Weed licensing lotteries. Good? Bad?
Josh Fellman: Bad. There’s too much national money in this industry and lotteries kill the local weed economy. Businesses should be rewarded for being part of the community early.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: You aren’t licensed as a dentist or a realtor via lottery. Why would we license cannabis operators this way? One of my biggest beefs with how this state has communicated on cannabis licensing is referring to earning a license as winning a golden ticket. This is not a game for most operators. It is enormously expensive, complex, and challenging to run a cannabis company.
I think conducting a licensing lottery gives a lot of people a lot of false hope. Getting the license is maybe 1% of what it takes to operate a successful business. I think a lot of people are going to get licenses, burn through their life savings trying to stand up their business, and then ultimately fail because they were underprepared. That’s particularly tragic for social equity applicants who may never financially recover from the loss.
Natasha Givens, founder of THC bakery NattyKakes: The first round [of the lottery] I applied for. Then there was a period of time where you had, like, 24 hours to get your paperwork in. I have a four year old, so that went completely over my head. And when I saw the kind of the shit show it became I was like, “OK, I'm gonna wait this out. I'm gonna wait till the playing area becomes more grounded and leveled.” It kind of felt discouraging at the time, but I realized I'm just gonna have to pivot and not make this so much of an end all be all, because I've been successful regardless.
I remember a time when the cannabis community was really vibrant and fun and more of a community. There wasn't this weird tension around all of us going for a license. I wish that vibrancy would come back.
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: Everybody who already applied to the [canceled] social equity stuff last fall, their applications are going to roll forward into this round. So we're going to have a lot of applicants. This is further complicated by the fact that some license types are capped, which means that if you have more applications than spots, then they go to a lottery. We are going to see substantial advantages for micro licensees, because the micro license is not capped, and that means that the accepted micros don't have to wait for a lottery in order to be able to move forward. They just have to wait for OCM to review and thumbs up their application. While we don't know exactly how long that will take—like maybe March, April?—those businesses, I think, have a real chance to get open, to start competing with the tribes and to capture those super high price first openers.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: The lotteries are the law of the land. A lot of people who were involved in crafting the law took a look at the experiences of other states and they were very worried about lawsuits slowing down the launch of the market, and for good reason. So they went with lotteries. And now lawsuits are slowing down the launch of the market. I’m really not sure there was any way the market was going to launch without litigation.
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: There is no right solution for allocating business licenses. States that have allowed unlimited licenses like Michigan, Oklahoma, and Oregon have faced a massive glut of weed and widespread concerns that legal product is being diverted into the illicit market in other states or even internationally. Limiting the number of licenses available, on the other hand, has led to lawsuits in practically every state that’s tried that approach. The most important issue for state officials to be concerned about is creating a fair process that applies the same rules to all applicants. That’s the only way to minimize legal risk.
How scared should we be of national brands decimating the local flower industry?
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: Extremely. Where there's potential for growth, where there's potential profits, big corporations will come in. We need to plan for how we're going to defend our local economy.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: It all comes down to licensing. Michigan has handed out unlimited cultivation licenses and it has cratered their pricing. There needs to be a balance with those, which I do think the state is trying to manage best they can.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: I’m not worried. There’s room in this market for everyone. Everyone tries to make competitors from other state markets out to be the boogeyman, but the reality is whether you’re a restaurant, an auto body shop, or a cannabis dispensary, you will have to compete with bigger national players. It’s not a level playing field, but that’s life. Business is a full-contact sport—gear up.
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: One of the weird things about cannabis is that national companies can come in, but they also still have to grow the flower. So they have to obtain licenses, in state—maybe through using straw applicants—or they have to acquire a legitimate in-state business. But thank goodness they can't just walk flower from California here, because that would be crossing state lines. And I think our big medical companies are excited to expand into adult use; let's not forget about them. But I have hope that consumers in Minnesota will still be excited to shop Minnesota grown small brands, as we do in other industries, right?
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: I think Minnesota’s law does have some effective safeguards to make the state less attractive to massive corporations (known as multi-state operators or MSOs) who might otherwise try to come in and dominate the market, such as the ownership requirements and the limits on plant canopy for cultivators and stuff like that. From conversations I’ve had with national industry observers, it doesn’t sound like Minnesota is at the top of the list for many of these MSOs. There are other states that are easier targets with lower barriers to entry out there. But Minnesota is going to be a big legal marijuana market. One estimate said something like $1.5 billion in annual sales by 2030. The big operators are going to want a piece of that. The two licensed medical cannabis companies, which are MSOs, are in the best position to expand their market share here.
And if weed becomes legal on a federal level this is all moot. Where does legal weed in Minnesota go from here, should it happen?
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: One big lesson that I’ve learned over the last five-plus years covering cannabis policy is that change at the federal level is an incredibly difficult, challenging process. For example, industry lobbyists have been pushing Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier for cannabis companies to access banking services for nearly a decade—and the bill has repeatedly stalled despite broad bipartisan support. The reality is that while there’s increasing support in Congress for loosening federal weed restrictions, it’s not a top priority for the vast majority of lawmakers and therefore cannabis legislation often doesn’t make the cut.
That same reality likely applies to the Trump administration when it comes to weed—although predicting anything about this White House is a perilous business. While the president has indicated support for the process started by his predecessor of reclassifying marijuana under federal law—specifically moving it from Schedule I to Schedule III on the Controlled Substances Act—it will likely take a long time to play out.
This is another big risk for weed entrepreneurs: The rules they currently operate under in state markets could change dramatically if federal legality ever happens.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: Personally, I would be kind of surprised if congressional Republicans pull a 180 on federal legalization in the next couple years. But I’ve certainly been wrong before. If Democrats take control of Congress in the midterms, that could change the calculus. If it were to happen, that could open the door for major corporations to grow their market share everywhere, not just in Minnesota. I know a lot of local industry folks are worried by the prospect of federal legalization blowing up the state market before it has a chance to get established. The key thing to watch right now is whether the DEA signs off on reclassifying marijuana.
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: In a non-Trump scenario, I would say that's not up to the president to reschedule. Trump's acting DEA head and the guy before him have signaled that they are really not interested in descheduling. We have also seen that Trump doesn't have patience for the administrative state. But, I mean, that would be pure chaos, right? To just do it by presidential edict.
Nathan Young, CEO of Hemp House: I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but we are nowhere near federal legalization. There’s a bill in the senate called the SAFER Banking Act that was first introduced in 2019. All it does is make it so that cannabis businesses can use the same banks and banking services normal businesses do. Even a bill that non-controversial has been nearly impossible to pass. I see zero path for national legalization in the next 10 years. At best, we will see rescheduling and neither AG Pam Bondi nor DEA Chief Derek Maltz have indicated that it’s at all a priority. Our best chance at meaningful reform was under Biden, and it’s honestly inexcusable we ran out the clock on rescheduling instead of just getting it done.
Are there any news stories that you feel are being undercovered? Overcovered?
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: The biggest story across the country right now is fights playing out over intoxicating hemp-derived products. Congress legalized hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill, unwittingly creating a multi-billion-dollar market for intoxicating products that’s spread across the country. In some states, there aren’t even any age restrictions on who can purchase these products. Now, state and federal lawmakers are looking to crack down on the market—or at least limit public health risks by creating more stringent regulatory guardrails for intoxicating products. That’s sparked pushback by hemp companies, arguing that their burgeoning industry would be decimated by many of the proposals. These fights will be playing out in state capitals across the country in the coming months.
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: I'd like to see more education because I think education reduces stigma. There's still quite a bit of “this is your brain on drugs” training out there, especially amongst people who haven't really interacted with marijuana and some of those people are now on city councils making cannabis zoning decisions.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: I’m not sure anything is really being overcovered. I get the sense that a lot of people are tired of the government bureaucratic stuff and the litigation and they just want to know when dispensaries will be open so they can actually buy flower or concentrates or whatever.
I would say the medical cannabis companies, RISE and Greener Goods, are being undercovered. There’s so much happening with the launch of the adult-use market that it’s easy to forget we do have two large state-licensed companies operating here. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. It’s kind of an open secret that, like in most states with medical cannabis programs, it’s pretty easy for anyone with $100 to get themself enrolled and avoid taxes. There’s room for more inquiry on the medical program.
I think the tribal operations and their future plans are also probably undercovered. It’s hard to report on the internal workings of the tribes. Because they are sovereign, journalists just don’t have the same levers to pull to get information from them if they don’t want to share it, like we do with other governments. But I think they are going to be big players in the industry if the compacts we’ve been hearing about get finalized.
Are there any things you’re excited about for this year? What should we be on the lookout for? Any predictions?
Kelly Sander, co-founder of THC company Ganja Skoden: I think you're going to see a lot of—and we've already started to see it—establishments or places or communities or organizations specifically doing cannabis festivals. You know, you have the Doobie Dabblers of the world. You have the Legacy Cups of the world. I can't wait to see the next step on those.
Natasha Givens, founder of THC bakery NattyKakes: I really look forward to legalization and for dispensaries to have premium, high-grade flower. Right now we’re in gummy land and seltzer land. I want our landscape to be creative and vibrant with different products. I would hate to see Minnesota regulate products so that we aren't able to do something.
Josh Fellman, co-founder of Flipside Dispensary: We’re really excited about the year to come and making the transition [to flower], but the slower this goes the more we’re going to see local stores like ours get bumped out as more national companies can build larger treasure chests. Creating the framework for an entire industry is extremely difficult but trying to be perfect creates its own problems. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say. I think people need to keep pushing the state to keep the rollout on track so we can keep the Minnesota weed business local, which is what we all want in the end!
Jen Randolph Reise, lawyer/consultant at Northstar Cannabis: My hope is that over the next year, or couple of years, we're going to start feeling more comfortable about cannabis and that it's not as big of a risk as we were told during the war on drugs years; that we can thread that needle for keeping our children safe and also have quality cannabis products available for purchase.
Also exciting is that while the tribes have already been able to open dispensaries on tribal land, upcoming compacts that they have been working on with the governor may allow them to open dispensaries off of tribal land like, for instance, on Lake Street.
Matt DeLong, Star Tribune journalist: I think the tribal marijuana operations are worth watching; where do they open stores and how do they fit into the broader market? There are some very large cultivation facilities under construction on tribal lands. They are not subject to the plant canopy and production limits that state-licensed businesses are, so they could become major suppliers of retail businesses. I think the state will be counting on them to help meet the demand for legal marijuana while the OCM gets the adult-use market up and running.
I’m also interested to see how the launch of the adult-use market impacts the hemp-derived market. Will there be room for both? Will hemp products be subjected to more regulation in the future? I suspect the answer to both is yes, but seeing the ways it actually plays out will be fascinating.
Paul Demko, journalist at Politico: One thing to be on the lookout for is blowback against the rapid spread of marijuana legalization that we’ve seen over the last decade-plus. As the legalization movement has spread to red states, there’s been increasing resistance to loosening marijuana restrictions. Voters in Oklahoma, Florida, South Dakota, and North Dakota have all rejected recreational legalization ballot measures in recent years. It will be interesting to see whether that trend continues or if you start to see more red states embrace legalization.
