{"id":49774,"date":"2020-02-03T17:33:07","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T17:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/this-montana-city-has-the-most-pot-shops-per-capita-in-the-us-but-is-that-a-good-thing\/"},"modified":"2020-02-03T17:33:07","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T17:33:07","slug":"this-montana-city-has-the-most-pot-shops-per-capita-in-the-us-but-is-that-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/merryjane.com\/culture\/this-montana-city-has-the-most-pot-shops-per-capita-in-the-us-but-is-that-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"This Montana City Has the Most Pot Shops Per Capita in the US, But Is That a Good Thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nestled in a valley among five separate mountain ranges in western Montana, the small city of Missoula has quite a few calling cards: the Clark Fork River snaking its way dreamily through the center of town, a vast array of hiking trails and premier ski slopes, a vibrant food scene, a cheery mountain town culture (\u201cThe world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana,\u201d Norman Maclean wrote in A River Runs Through It<\/em>). <\/p>\n

And as of last week, the town can add another claim to its wall of fame: according to a report by the multistate dispensary chain Verilife<\/u><\/a>, Missoula is home to more dispensaries (medical or adult-use) per capita than any other city in the country. (Oregon, however, takes the cake as the state with the most dispensaries per capita<\/u><\/a>). <\/p>\n

While proponents of the cannabis industry may point to this superlative statistic with pride, in reality it speaks to the state\u2019s bizarre and impractical regulations. The medical marijuana market in Montana is driven in large part by a system known as \u201ctethering,\u201d which requires every medical patient in the state to enter into a monogamous relationship with a dispensary; patients can\u2019t buy cannabis anywhere but from that single provider (although they are able to switch between among providers for ten bucks<\/u><\/a>). As a result, a surplus of stores have opened to meet the demand. Now, there are 27 dispensaries<\/u><\/a> in Missoula \u2014 population 74,000 \u2014 alone. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a joke,\u201d said Emmie Purcell, owner of the local dispensary Greenhouse Farmacy, in regards to the draconian \u201ctethering\u201d system.<\/p>\n

Continuing the state\u2019s long history of tug-of-war between progress and absurd laws, tethering was overturned last May as part of a bill overhauling the medical marijuana program<\/u><\/a>, and \u201cuntethering\u201d will go into effect at an unspecified time between now and July 1st. The bill also doubled the retail tax<\/u><\/a> on cannabis from 2% to 4% \u2014 that part of the law is already in effect, and will fund additional oversight of the program. <\/p>\n

While untethering will hopefully bring stability to the state\u2019s medical program, Montana\u2019s troubled track record shows that its future is nothing if not uncertain, and that more problems for regulators, entrepreneurs, and consumers alike may still lie ahead.<\/p>\n

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A Long and Weird History<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A sense of chaos has pervaded Montana\u2019s medical marijuana program since its inception in 2004. Initially, the market flourished, but in March 2011, more than two dozen dispensaries were hit by federal raids<\/u><\/a> on trumped-up trafficking charges. No arrests were made. “The reckless and cruel disregard for the patients that count on these shops is going to cause a lot of heartache,” John Masterson of Montana NORML, said at the time<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

That same year, the state legislature took their reactionary prohibitionism one step further, and approved a measure<\/u><\/a> that limited each dispensary to only serving three patients. Total. <\/p>\n

The law was, unsurprisingly, fought in state courts, and didn\u2019t take effect until 2016. But once it was implemented, the outlandish new measure pushed 93% of the state\u2019s medical patients out of the system and back into the illicit market. Later in 2016, voters repealed the measure and effectively resuscitated a revised medical marijuana program with some semblance of practicality: there are currently thirteen qualifying conditions<\/u><\/a> available \u2014 from chronic pain to Crohn\u2019s \u2014 and cannabis is available in flower, concentrate, tincture, topical, and edible forms. Patients can legally possess up to four plants. As of last summer, there were nearly 35,000 patients registered in the state.<\/p>\n

The dispensaries themselves are required to be vertically-integrated, meaning each dispensary must grow their own flower and manufacture their own products; much like how Colorado’s market functioned in the past.<\/p>\n

But tethering is one of the strangest features of the current law. Beyond requiring that each patient commit to only shopping at a single dispensary, it places limits on how many patients a dispensary can serve, in proportion to the amount of flower it grows. A few stores, like Spark1 and Bloom Montana, have multiple locations throughout the state; otherwise, patients are truly handcuffed to a single dispensary location, unless, of course, they\u2019re willing to switch providers..<\/p>\n

Purcell, at Greenhouse Farmacy, argued that tethering makes it difficult for new stores to gain traction, especially as bigger dispensaries and chains pull in a larger share of the market. \u201cI think it\u2019s too late to establish oneself as a viable entity unless their