A year or two ago, the ads on the back page of the local alternative newspaper were mostly for escort agencies, Asian massage parlors, lesbian plumbers, psychedelic glassware, and growing supplies for pot.
Last month, the last 8 full pages of the paper were just ads for medical marijuana dispensaries.
Its impossible to know exactly how many medical marijuana dispensaries there are, because the state neither licenses nor tracks them. It is estimated to be between a one-quarter and one-half billion dollar industry nation-wide, one which is (at least in my state) completely unregulated.
Estimates puts the number of dispensaries between 100 and 150. In Feburary of 2009, the number was estimated to be about 30. In 2008, there were only 2.
There are so many that Westword has even hired a journalist to run a weekly column of dispensary reviews. They are actually doing so well that they are putting many drug dealers out of business. Its free-market capitalism in action, only with federally controlled substances.
What a brave new world.
No comments:
Post a Comment