Amendment 3 passed on Tuesday night, legalizing recreational marijuana for adults in Missouri. But what does it mean for consumers, businesses and those hoping to break into the industry?
Bradford Goette, CEO and managing partner of Nirvana Investments, which helps people set up cannabis businesses, joined KMOX to talk about what’s next for dispensaries in the state. He said that for dispensaries selling medical marijuana, there will be a process before they can sell weed for recreational use.
“What they'll do is — you know, currently we are a medical marijuana facility — it'll be called a comprehensive license, which would then be able to convert to an adult use license,” Goette explained. “So anybody 21 years old or older can come in and purchase. So there's a paperwork component of it. But it could be early February, by rule that we can be operational in that capacity.”
Goette said he predicts that most medical dispensaries will want to pursue recreational licenses, too. And, he said, there will be more work to do in becoming a recreational dispensary aside from the paperwork, like increasing staff and security.
“We've been planning for this for years, we're fortunate to have a lot of retail background,” he said. “You know, right now, the security standards are very, very high in a restricted business and that's on purpose, and it's the right thing to do for our people's safety and patient safety.” He added, “We definitely are excited to add additional people to help serve future consumers, not only our current medical consumers, but the ones that we plan on seeing in the future.”
Goette said that his dispensary’s current customer base is generally an older crowd.
“I'm 55, and I would say I'm right about the median age of our consumer in the medical side,” Goette said. “We are fortunate to be in a position where we're there for people for last of life — MS, Epilepsy, you know, really seeing the impact that it makes on these patients that they found no other choice, and they've tried cannabis to help ease some of those pains.”
Lyndall Fraker, the director of medical marijuana regulations for the Department of Health and Senior Services, also joined KMOX to talk about how these changes will be implemented. He said that while many of the licenses issued will go to medical dispensaries, there will be some new vendors, too.
“The current licensed facilities will be able to convert their facilities from medical facilities to what we call comprehensive facilities, comprehensive licenses, and then later on, there will be the possibility or the potential for other licenses to be issued as well,” he said.
Fraker said there will also be 144 licenses offered for “micro businesses.”
“It's a new category that this amendment gives us the direction to add, and those will be licenses for facilities that will be a little bit smaller in size on the cultivation side, and then the dispensaries for them as well,” he said.
Copyright 2022 KMOX (Audacy). All Rights Reserved.
Follow KMOX | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Listen on the free Audacy app.
Tell your smart speaker to play K M O X.