We only had four medical cannabis dispensaries in 2017
A lot has changed in the last five years, especially the business landscape in my county.
For years we had vacant strip malls and old bank buildings left unused after the Great Recession of 2008.
It seemed like most new businesses were doomed to fail from the start, especially restaurants and specialty goods stores. I loved the old hobby store on Main Street, but that closed down in 2014 and was never seen again. The same thing happened to the vinyl records store in 2017. But there was a real recovery in the economy between 2018 and 2020, which saw the opening of new restaurants, stores, and service businesses like banks, law offices, and medical buildings. This also coincided with the passing of a medical cannabis law in our state, which happened in the last quarter of 2016. We only had four open medical cannabis dispensaries during 2017, but half a dozen were approved by the Department of Health during 2018. By 2020, we had doubled our number of open cannabis dispensaries. Since our state has vertical integration in our medical cannabis industry, that means all cannabis companies must operate from seed to sale. They have to grow their cannabis plants, process them into products, and then sell those products to the medical cannabis patients. Most cannabis companies open retail stores called dispensaries, while other cannabis companies utilize delivery services only to get their products to their customers. My favorite cannabis company has both cannabis delivery services and dispensaries open in every county in this state. If you order at least $100 worth of cannabis products at once, you can get free home delivery.