Missouri Marijuana Microbusinesses Begin First Crop Harvests Amid Struggle To Succeed

*“It’s so hard for the cannabis businesses. I don’t qualify for small
business loans. So far, this has not been the blessing that I hoped it was
going to be.”*

*By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent*

Samantha Blum hasn’t been able to secure investors for her small-scale
marijuana cultivation facility in the two years since Missouri awarded her
a microbusiness license.

So she and her longtime partner, Anthony La Pietra, decided to give up and
fund the entire operation themselves, cashing in La Pietra’s retirement to
build a greenhouse in Adrian, an hour outside of Kansas City.

After two years of “blood, sweat and tears,” they finally received the
state’s final approval to begin operating on September 3. But just hours
after the state’s email arrived, a massive storm crushed one side of the
greenhouse.

“To go from such a high to such an incredibly bottom low…” she said. “It’s
been such a roller coaster.”

Despite the setback, her family rallied to fix the wall, and now their
business, Bud Wizard, is expected to have its first harvest in the coming
weeks.

Blum’s facility is among the 12 microbusinesses the state has approved to
begin operating out of 68 total licenses issued. Two are dispensaries. The
rest are wholesale licenses like Blum’s that can grow up to 250 plants and
manufacture marijuana products.

The microbusiness program—sometimes called the social-equity cannabis
program—was designed to boost opportunities in the industry for people in
disadvantaged communities that have been most impacted by the war on drugs.
It began in 2023, after passing as part of the constitutional amendment to
legalize recreational marijuana in 2022.

Up until this summer, the state had approved only a handful licenses to
commence operations—which involves meeting rigorous health standards and
security protocols. But in the past few months, the microbusiness community
has finally started to fill in, with the state greenlighting a surge of
cultivation licensees.

Like Blum, many of these owners stopped looking for funding and finally
decided to put their life savings into getting the business off the ground.
Now they’ve either had their first harvest this month or are expecting one
in the next few weeks.

James Mondl, owner of Klondike Cannabis micro cultivation facility in
Farmington, just watched his first harvest ship Tuesday to another licensed
facility for the manufacturing phase.

“I haven’t completely exhaled, to be honest,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of
time and money in this, and so to see the product leave today was as big a
step—maybe a bigger one than when we brought plants in.”

Wholesalers’ products can legally only go to the two operational
microbusiness dispensaries at the moment: 816 Dispensary in Platte City and
Kush 21 in Poplar Bluff. The Missouri Constitution mandates that micro
cultivators only sell to micro dispensaries.

Lesley Turek, chief equity officer with the Missouri Division of Cannabis
Regulation who oversees the program, says the success of the micro
community is like a “puzzle” because it depends on enough growers and
dispensaries being up and running at the same time.

And both of them depend on the middleman—the manufacturers—or wholesalers
who have gotten approval to make things like edibles and vapes.

“My excitement lies in the next six months,” Turek said.

As anticipation around more micros opening builds, so does the pressure to
succeed.

Some license owners have already hit a number of road blocks and aren’t
sure how much more they can invest into getting the business off the
ground. Sam Vosburg, whose cultivation facility in Aurora has been
operational since March, fears he invested his retirement on a failed
business.

“We’re suffering right now,” Vosburg, owner of Ozark Mountain Gypsy LLC,
told The Independent in October. “I don’t know how much longer I keep my
lights on. Our electric bills are crazy, and we’re not making any money.
So, yeah, it’s not looking good.”

However last week, Vosburg was approved to become one of the first two
manufacturers, so he says he sees “a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Blum is the chairwoman of the Missouri Microbusiness Association, and she
says her passion for the industry is a major driving force in making it
through “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

The other driver is her four daughters.

“One day they’ll have dreams,” Blum said of her daughters, “and they’ll
want to do something big, that’s insurmountable and accomplish it because
they watched their mom and their dad accomplish it.”

*Winning the lottery*

Jimi Poe is the owner of 816 Dispensary, which was the first micro
dispensary to open its doors to the public on Aug. 16. He’s quickly become
a pillar for the microbusiness community, as someone to not only buy
wholesalers’ products but also offer guidance on getting started.

“I’m not going to succeed if I can’t get wholesalers to succeed,” he said.

October was his biggest month yet, he said, with 1,500 transactions. He
works closely with Blume LLC, one of the first operating wholesalers,
because he says they’ve been “killing it” on their craft marijuana buds, or
what the industry calls flower.

Up until now, a major challenge for Poe has been that no wholesale facility
had the capability to manufacture products, such as edibles or vapes,
because it can require expensive equipment.

With the state approving Vosburg and Kansas-City area microbusiness Urban
Farm to manufacture products, Poe only expects his sales to grow. Another
one in the Farmington area, Levity Cannabis, has also applied for approval,
according to the division.

Nearly 20 years ago, Poe was sent to prison for 14 months on a non-violent
marijuana felony—a charge that made it hard to find work or a place to
live. Because the program aims to mend some of the harm marijuana
prohibition has caused on people’s lives, his offense made him eligible to
apply for the microbusiness program.

“When I was in prison, I was telling myself I was never going to sell
cannabis again,” he said. “And now I’m legally able to sell cannabis at my
own store. So it’s been a crazy journey, that is for sure.”

In 2023, Mitchell Alexander submitted one microbusiness application with
his uncle, Jesse Greco, who qualifies for the program as a disabled
veteran, and paid a $1,500 fee. Their application was entered into the
lottery with more than 1,600 applications, and they were picked.

“He and I got together and decided to do it because we had nothing to
lose,” Alexander said. “Because the lottery was: if you lose, you get your
money back. If you win, you get your license.”

Alexander runs ReLeaf Dispensary in Kansas City, and he’s excited to grow
in the way that he believes produces the best weed: living soil.

“No chemicals, no pesticides,” he said. “It’s literally, we’re just feeding
the soil, and it’s as organic as it gets.”

For Greco, cannabis has always been something he turned to in his life for
his PTSD, Alexander said. They’ve invested their own money and resources,
and he’s optimistic about their first harvest that’s expected just before
Christmas.

“We take so much pride in being completely independent,” he said. “We
didn’t have any consulting groups help us out. We really just grassrooted
this, and that’s exactly how we’re going to run this company.”

The team at Monsta Farms LLC in Sarcoxie has a similar mantra. It’s a group
that includes two couples who’ve all pulled together their own money and
time. They all have a “strength in the building,” said co-owner Chris
Hampel, and everyone’s doing something they’re passionate about.

“I like watering the plants, for example,” Hampel said. “My wife hates
watering the plants. But she’ll sit over there with dirt and pot plants all
day long. And she loves that. I hate that.”

However, they each balance their cannabis work with their fulltime jobs,
including two who work as nurses. Their collective dream is to make it
their fulltime jobs.

They just had their first harvest on Monday.

Chad Sommer, an owner of Strainworx LLC in Lebanon, is also expecting his
first harvest soon, he said, after two years of trying to keep “everything
in check.”

“I mean, trying to keep family in check, trying to keep my fulltime job in
check, and then also wanting to try to build this out,” he said.

His specialty is industrial automation systems, and it’s taken time to
finetune that process, he said. He got into cannabis because he suffered
from migraines. He realized a cannabis gummy worked a lot better at
controlling them than the expensive shots he was receiving.

“So from that point, it’s held a special position in my heart,” Sommer said.

Now his migraines are gone. His team had to “hit several retirement funds,”
to start up the business, but they’re optimistic.

“One thing that is a challenge is for many of the micros…starting
resources,” he said. “It is a tough start. Everything is so expensive with
the hope that one day you get a return.”

*Financial troubles*

When Vosburg’s cultivation facility Ozark Mountain Gypsy LLC got its
approval to open in March, he was feeling “very optimistic.”

“The only thing I didn’t calculate was the delays from the state,” he said.

State marijuana rules mandate that regulators approve labels before
products are sent to stores. And it took months for that approval to come
back.

“Now they’re putting all these tutorials on how to do this,” Vosburg said
of the labels and packaging. “We were doing this from scratch with no help.”

Turek said the division has worked to improve tutorials, and now each
facility has a designated compliance representative who can help guide the
micros through the labeling and packaging approval process.

Another challenge for his team has been the lack of manufacturing
equipment. It’s been hard to compete with the other companies that are
selling only flower and pre-rolled joints.

All together, Vosburg estimates they’ve put $500,000 of their own money
into the business. And he fears they could lose it all at any moment.

But as of last week, Vosburg was approved to manufacture products on a
small scale, providing him with a way forward.

“I could pay my electric bill if I can sell a few dabs by the end of the
month,” he said.

Veteran David Huckins owns a dispensary license in Columbia with his wife,
and they lead a weekly podcast to help microbusinesses share resources on a
variety of topics.

But they aren’t anywhere close to being able to open, he said.

While the cultivators can often find land to build a facility in rural
areas, dispensaries need to be in places with high visibility and traffic.
And that’s hard when landlords often don’t want to lease a building to
dispensaries, Huckins said, and he can’t get capital to buy a building.

The Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation is not aware of any
microbusinesses that have received loans from banks, a spokesperson said.

“It’s so hard for the cannabis businesses,” Huckins said. “I don’t qualify
for small business loans. So far, this has not been the blessing that I
hoped it was going to be.”

*This story was first published by Missouri Independent.*

*Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.*

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Struggle To Succeed appeared first on Marijuana Moment.