Louisiana is starting 2022 off with a fast pace, offering smokable cannabis flower and providing patients with access to a wider range of products.
Becoming a medical marijuana patient in Louisiana is straightforward and easy, patients with a qualifying condition can apply for a medical marijuana certification, and once approved, begin legally purchasing cannabis products from a handful of approved pharmacies.
And while that handful of pharmacies is working double time to provide quality cannabis products and services like consultations and delivery to currently registered patients, the state likely couldn’t handle the volume of cannabis at scale for tens to hundreds of thousands of registered patients.
And with the state only having two official growers, the pipeline could get bottlenecked before cannabis even hits a pharmacy.
In this article, we’ll cover why having many cultivators and home growing as an option is important, and how states can avoid the marijuana monopoly method by allowing more than just a select group of people to profit from the industry.
How to Avoid Marijuana Monopolies
Programs Should Be Inclusive, Not Exclusive
The reasons why marijuana monopolies are terrible for the industry are easy to understand from the point of view of patients.
Marijuana monopolies create restrictive practices on business operations, reduce the demand for compliance, prevent transparency, and encourage high prices with little to no competition to drive them down.
For example, if you could only purchase your gasoline from one or two vendors, what do you think the price per gallon would be?
Do you think you’d have fairer access to better prices?
What about availability altogether, what happens when one company has a setback or can’t deliver fuel from their supplier?
Monopolies are bad for business, and the first step in preventing a marijuana monopoly is to make sure that the same opportunities are available for everyone, and that there are multiple checks and balances to prevent just one or two entities from controlling everything.
Supply & Demand, Checks & Balances
In every step of the cannabis supply-chain you should find multiple checks and balances, as well as challenges to things like supply and demand.
Cannabis is a big industry and managing a cannabis supply-chain is a complex pursuit because cannabis production on a state level happens at extraordinary volumes alongside extraordinary profits.
When a cannabis program is functioning at the highest level, there are usually multiple ways to address problems like high supply, low demand, or low supply, high demand, and other avenues to keep regulation and competition in a healthy flow.
If you only have two cultivators, you’ll always be limited to their supply, their prices, their products, and their business practices.
More Cultivators Means More Business, Better Products, & Higher Quality
MMJ Programs Can Get Bottlenecked
You can imagine the kind of problems that McDonald’s would have if they only had one supplier for their burger patties, buns, and condiments.
Any small or minor kink in the chain could have drastic results in the bottom-line of the sales process, and when you only have one or two sources to pull from, product availability and price can get out of hand very quickly.
Louisiana’s medical marijuana program is still relatively new in the industry, and there’s plenty of room to restructure how the state approaches cannabis before there are irrecoverable problems.
But it’s safe to say that with just 9 pharmacies approved to sell cannabis in Louisiana and only two cultivators, in the coming years when patient registrations are in the hundreds of thousands it will likely be very difficult to maintain any consistency through the chaos of what will be product availability and price.
Keep Prices Fair
The cannabis industry can suffer heavily from huge markups, price inflation, and suspicious business practices. Naturally, any highly profitable industry will likely suffer the same complications, because when there’s a lot of money moving it’s sometimes easier to move it in the wrong direction.
That’s where transparency and access come into play for the cannabis industry. The best medical marijuana programs encourage open access, avoid exclusivity, offer meaningful value, and maintain affordability.
None of those properties can be applied to states that don’t embrace a fair and open cannabis market because they are only measurable amongst themselves. You can’t compare prices between retailers or growers because there’s only the two to compare.
And when you compare restrictive medical marijuana programs to open markets, they fail to deliver for patients miserably.
Louisiana can approach the cannabis industry from a better perspective in 2022, and we hope that the move to provide inclusive access to cultivation, regulatory management, and better prices are on the minds of lawmakers for the year, because they’re certainly on the minds of patients whose medicine is on the line.
Get Your Louisiana Medical Marijuana Certification
Louisiana’s medical marijuana program is offering cannabis flower for 2022, and new products are coming throughout the year. Patients can register for a medical marijuana certification if they are diagnosed with a qualifying condition and begin purchasing legal cannabis from pharmacies in select locations.
Beat the lines and get your medical marijuana certification in Louisiana today, and you can even get certified for medical marijuana online for ease of use and convenience.
For questions about Louisiana’s medical marijuana program, or how to become a medical marijuana patient in Louisiana, consult with one of our trusted doctors and book an online medical marijuana appointment today!
Doctors Who Care.
Relief You Can Trust.
At Louisiana Marijuana Card, our mission is helping everyone achieve wellness safely and conveniently through increased access to medical marijuana. Our focus on education, inclusion, and acceptance will reduce the stigma for our patients by providing equal access to timely information and compassionate care.
Call us at (833) 253-2943, or simply book a medical marijuana evaluation to start getting relief you can trust today!
Check out Louisiana Marijuana Card’s Blog to keep up to date on the latest medical marijuana news, tips, and information. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to join the medical marijuana conversation in Louisiana!
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