Ep.258: Ben Pollara

Cannabis Economy

Ben Pollara returns to discuss the state of the cannabis economy in Florida. Of course, Florida passed an amendment to legalize medical marijuana with 71% of the vote in 2016. The legislative session just ended however with a failure to pass implementing legislation. The two houses in Florida have bi-cameral consensus to maintain the current system with both the senate and house saying new licenses need to be tied to the number of patients admitted into the program. Businesses need customers to stay in business, so from a standing start, one can see how this approach makes sense. This does ultimately mean however, that market-driven growth economy legislators counterintuitively prefer a small closed market for cannabis.