No matter the plant’s legal status, Colorado has never been short of growers of cannabis — so out-of-staters looking to get into the business need to know what they’re doing. And Mike Meyer (without the “s,” so don’t confuse him with Austin Powers or the Halloween slasher) definitely did. He got his start in California, growing cannabis in his attic as a hobby while studying horticulture in college.
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Moffat was a major cattle shipping center along the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad in the early 1900s, but over the past century the population of this town in southern Colorado dwindled, until it now holds barely 100 residents, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
“I think they were counting the dogs and cats when they did that,” says former Moffat mayor Brian Morgan. “Now we need to figure out how to add more housing, because Moffat doesn’t have a lot.”
Colorado’s cannabis industry has come a long way since medical marijuana dispensaries started popping up a decade ago. The industry exploded with the start of legal recreational sales on January 1, 2014, and a boom in capital funding soon ushered in a more corporate era. Now more Colorado towns and counties are allowing retail pot sales than ever before, with consumers buying much more than bags of weed at dispensaries.
The Marijuana Industry Group has helped the Colorado cannabis business develop into an awesome revenue machine that generates sales measured in the billions. But behind the scenes, MIG is embroiled in dueling Denver District Court lawsuits that pit the organization against Michael Elliott, its former executive director, in a fight that’s witheringly nasty.
Denver may be a leader in regulating recreational cannabis sales, but it’s hard to say the same about recreational cannabis consumption. Despite allowing medical marijuana dispensaries in town for over a decade and retail pot shops for nearly five years, Denver’s attempts to address social pot use have fallen just a few degrees above flat.
Colorado marijuana sales continued their summer uptick in July with record-breaking sales, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue. The state’s dispensaries collected over $138.5 million, the highest monthly sales figure so far, just beating August 2017’s tally of $138.46 million.
The vast possibilities of hemp are emerging as the legal barriers to hemp-based products begin to disappear, and among those possibilities is manufacturing products not for consumers, but for other companies. While many businesses involved with hemp and CBD are eager for the spotlight, others would rather do their work without the attention, in exchange for a manufacturing fee.
Cannabis has become a popular alternative treatment for cancer, but with one of its own fighting for his life, the legal pot industry has geared up to fight the disease on a different level. A member of that industry for five years, Jason Margolies was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer at the beginning of 2018.
The legal marijuana industry is booming, according to a new report from one of commercial pot’s largest job recruiters. But which jobs are paying the most?
Talk to any cannabis business owners in Colorado today, and they’ll have something to say about consolidation. Some of them are doing the consolidating, while others are doing their best to not be eaten. They’re putting up a good fight: According to a recent study by Marijuana Business Daily, although the state’s pot industry has seen increased consolidation as it matures, it’s not happening at a rate even close to consolidation in other industries.