Residency Requirement is Bad for Measure 91 and Oregon
Both Colorado and Washington’s programs restricted engagement (including investment from speculators) of their legal marijuana industries to residents of the state. But in Washington, it just required a 90 day residency period to qualify, which was easily managed by the so-called Big Weed given the time between I-502’s passage and its implementation.
And yet… of the 570 Washington businesses which currently hold the 899 licenses the WSLCB has issued through last Tuesday, virtually all are small, usually family run Washington businesses.
The Big Weed threat is hyperbole at best, and a sinister manipulation at worst
The few large companies that ARE engaging I-502 are doing so in ways that have greatly benefitted Washingtonians. A trending model is to buy or contract infrastructure and lease operational capacity to current and pending I-502 stakeholders. These companies are investing significant resources and crafting modern, turnkey producer processor facilities in I-502-friendly markets, and purchasing materials and using vendors from Washington companies. It helps every stakeholder both directly and indirectly.
In fact, one the biggest of the so-called Big Weed players isn’t even an out of state firm. It’s Washington’s own Privateer Holdings, which owns both the Leafly brand and the license to Bob Marley’s name and brand for the legal cannabis industry.
For Measure 91, I am positive that the benefits the non-residency characteristic presents outweigh the negatives. True, one could worry about giant companies coming into Oregon and buying up all of the strategic locations and/or resources needed to grow Oregon’s new marijuana industry, and that’s certainly possible under Measure 91 rules. However, even if that did occur, those out-of-state entities would rely upon locals to implement their plans and this would create significant employment and economic opportunities for those people.
Also, and quite ironically, legal pot’s primary nemesis, nationally-its status as a schedule 1 drug per federal law-works against large companies investing heavily in Oregon’s program. Federally speaking, not only would those large, out of state corporations be breaking the law, they would be crossing state lines to do so and there’s a good chance that’s more stress than your typical VP of marketing and development can tolerate.
More importantly, I know for a fact that there are quite a few Oregonians with the proverbial rich uncle who lives out of state. Enacting a residency requirement would exclude those Oregonians from the very economic opportunity the residency requirement is touted as protecting.
