Missouri Officials Award Contract For Marijuana Market Study That Will Help Determine Whether To Issue New Licenses

*“As it relates to cannabis markets, Missouri is pretty famously the model
to follow. So I’m very interested in doing a super deep dive.”*

*By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent*

New York-based Cannabis Public Policy Consulting LLC was awarded a contract
this month to study Missouri’s marijuana market for the next year.

The group’s $238,700 contract to conduct an economic-impact study will help
the state determine “whether or when the state will be required to issue
additional cannabis facility licenses and, if so, how many, where, and of
what type,” according to a March press release from the Missouri Department
of Health and Senior Services.

Currently, department rules allows only a handful of licenses more than the
minimum number required by the constitutional amendments that legalized
medical and, subsequently, recreational marijuana for adults.

As a result, the department has issued nearly 400 licenses for cultivation,
manufacturing facilities and dispensaries. The rules, for example, allow 27
dispensary licenses in each of the state’s eight congressional districts,
while the Constitution requires a minimum of 24.

The state will also eventually have 144 microbusiness licenses, which are
limited in size and scope and meant to benefit disadvantaged business
owners.

In 2024, Missouri recorded $1.46 billion in total marijuana sales in the
state’s second year of adult-use marijuana, outperforming states with a
longer history of marijuana legalization like Arizona, Colorado and Nevada.

“As it relates to cannabis markets, Missouri is pretty famously the model
to follow,” Mackenzie Slade, the group’s CEO and owner, told The
Independent in April. “So I’m very interested in doing a super deep dive.”

Three companies were vying for the contract this spring. One applicant,
Oregon-based Whitney Economics, conducts cannabis studies globally but
failed to meet one of the requirements regarding managers, according to the
state’s bid evaluation.

The other was St. Louis-based Capital Consulting Services, a certified
Missouri minority-owned business enterprise that has helped governments
with economic feasibility studies for 15 years on a state and federal
level. The group submitted a higher bid of $360,000 than Slade’s company
and didn’t have as much experience studying cannabis markets.

Founded in 2019, Cannabis Public Policy Consulting is a “100% woman-owned
collective of researchers, data scientists, public health professionals,
and policy experts working together toward a unified goal: to bring
much-needed data, innovation, and nuance to cannabis research and
policymaking,” the contract states.

Before becoming an independent LLC, the group worked together as a
consulting team incubated by Advocates for Human Potential Inc. and have
produced similar market reports for about 12 cannabis regulatory agencies
over the last six years, the contract states. That includes the states of
Maine, Maryland, Virginia, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Michigan and Utah.

“For a dozen government contracts, CPPC has performed the exact same scope
of services as outlined in the RFP; supply and demand assessments and
predictive modeling,” it states.

Slade’s company administers a national survey on cannabis use, which
essentially measures and quantifies demand behavior for consumers. One of
the things that they use it for, she said, at a national level is to try to
understand how states are performing based on their policies.

“And Missouri continuously outperforms other states, relative to their date
of sale,” she told The Independent, “…because they were able to stand up a
market so quickly.”

That was in part, she said, because Missouri limited the number of licenses
to get operational within just a few months. For the study, Slade proposed
to use the state’s track and trace data to identify the efficiencies of the
licenses.

“That’s a prime example of where we would uncover some extremely important
considerations for policy,” she said. “And I do believe that the intent of
the study is to identify areas of policy that need to be updated.”

Experts generally agree that Missouri’s decision to only issue a few more
than the minimum licenses allowed under the constitution has been the key
to the industry’s boom. However, critics have long argued that the decision
created a monopoly that’s kept out opportunities for people who were most
impacted by the war on drugs. While the microbusiness license program was
included in the 2022 constitutional amendment to address inequities, the
limitations on what these businesses can do make it difficult to turn a
profit.

If the department does issue additional licenses, at least half of those
licenses must be awarded to owners of cannabis microbusiness facilities
that have been operational for at least a year.

The study will also provide information regarding the overall economic
stability of the regulated market, including strengths and risks, with a
special emphasis on the market’s impact on economically distressed areas of
the state, according to the state’s press release.

The Constitution requires the department to develop a plan to “promote and
encourage ownership and employment in the marijuana industry by people from
political subdivisions and districts that are economically distressed.”

“The study will provide information,” the release states, “relevant to
creating and implementing such a plan.”

*This story was first published by Missouri Independent.*

The Congressional Cannabis Caucus Still Hasn’t Held A Meeting Six Months
Into This Session, Co-Chair Says

*Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.*

The post Missouri Officials Award Contract For Marijuana Market Study That
Will Help Determine Whether To Issue New Licenses appeared first on Marijuana
Moment.