What kind of recreational marijuana market does Rhode Island want? Should growth be market driven or tightly controlled and regulated?
The state’s slow rollout of a regulatory framework for retail sellers has left those in the industry, and others hoping to join, guessing.
And it’s left the new Cannabis Control Commission that will be charged with answering those questions with a lot of catching up to do.
As this week’s cover story reports, cultivators have been hurt the most by the state’s yearlong delay in setting up a regulatory commission.
Rhode Island has more than 60 marijuana cultivators but only seven licensed retail sellers. That imbalance is unsustainable and one sign of an unhealthy market.
While it’s not the state’s role to pick winners and losers in any industry, the delay in issuing new retail licenses effectively capped growth in this nascent market.
And licensed growers can only sell to Rhode Island shops and dispensaries. It’s likely some will not be in business when new licenses, and buyers, are finally approved.
Retail sellers are struggling too, though their issues are mostly market driven. They have benefited from the limited in-state competition but have been unfairly hurt by advertising restrictions that don’t apply to out-of-state sellers.
For the industry to grow in a healthy, managed way, the commission must create a level playing field for both cultivators and sellers to compete. Then let the market decide the winners while the commission focuses on enforcing the rules.
