Next gold rush: Legal marijuana

The size of the non-criminal marijuana industry is expected to grow to about $2.6 billion this year.

Like the glint of gold or rumors of oil in ages past, the advent of legal, recreational marijuana is beginning to reshape economies in Colorado and Washington State. Marijuana is beckoning thousands of entrepreneurs and workers, investors and hucksters from across the country, each looking to cash in on a rapidly changing industry that offers hefty portions of both promise and peril.

At convention centers and in hotel meeting rooms, start-up companies are floating sales pitches for marijuana delivery services or apps to name-tagged investors who sip red wine and munch on hempseed snacks.

This year, hundreds of people seeking jobs lined up for blocks in downtown Denver, résumés in hand, for an industry-sponsored marijuana job fair. Some have traveled far, leaving security jobs in Ohio or software jobs in Indiana to move for marijuana, hoping the industry has room for them.

“It’s the wild, wild West,” said Tom Bollich, who moved from the world of mobile apps in Silicon Valley to become the chief executive of a company based in Boulder, Colo., that builds climate systems for marijuana growers.

With marijuana now legal for medical use in 23 states and Washington, D.C., and full legalization heading to the ballot in Alaska and Oregon, the size of the noncriminal marijuana industry is expected to grow to about $2.6 billion this year from about $1.5 billion last year, according to estimates by the ArcView Group, a marijuana research and investment firm in San Francisco.

Investors in marijuana say there have been as many as 80 marijuana-related companies trading publicly, though federal securities regulators have warned that some of these new firms might be fraudulent efforts to dupe investors hunting for the next big thing.

In Colorado’s first six months of retail sales, the number of people licensed to work with the plant has grown to 11,289 this month from about 6,000. (The state points out that not all those people may be actively working in the marijuana industry.) Since the first dozen stores opened in January, Colorado has issued licenses for more than 200 recreational marijuana shops. Tourists have flocked to those stores, making up 44 per cent of the customers at one Denver shop during a sample week this spring, according to the state’s first study of demand for marijuana. Tour companies and marijuana-friendly bed-and-breakfasts have sprung up to serve tourists, too. In Washington State, where recreational sales kicked off last week, the retail industry is much smaller, with as few as eight stores open so far.

But the ambitions are boundless, with more than 300 licenses under state review and an outdoor growing season — perfect for apples, wheat and grapes — that could make Washington a national powerhouse of production if legalization spreads.

Peripheral businesses

Hundreds of other people have found work on the edges of the industry. They sell water systems, soil nutrients, lighting and accounting services, like the 19th-century merchants who profited by selling picks and shovels to gold miners.

There are now dozens of marijuana-related mobile apps, marijuana-centric law firms and real estate agents, cannabis security experts (it is a risky, virtually all-cash trade) and marijuana-themed event promoters offering everything from luxury getaways to bus tours.

 Washington has a rule requiring bar-code tracking of every marijuana plant to ensure that only licensed, Washington-grown marijuana is sold in its stores. It has also created a niche for tech start-ups like Viridian Sciences, a software company aiming to help retailers prove the provenance of their product should a state inspector or customer ask.

But many have also discovered that selling marijuana, even without the specter of being arrested, carries high costs and no guarantee of success. 

A heavily regulated recreational marijuana program in Washington drew more than 7,000 applications, but many of those would-be growers, processors and retailers have struggled from the start.

They had to find financial capital that state inspectors would approve and lock in a legal business location. Then, they had to endure months of delays as overwhelmed state workers processed and analyzed an oversubscribed applicant list.

Despite marijuana’s outlaw reputation and legal status, the industry is growing largely because the Obama administration decided last year not to oppose votes in 2012 in Colorado and Washington that legalized marijuana for personal use and laid the groundwork for statewide sales.

But regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission warned that the loosened laws created new horizons for fraud, as small companies with dubious assets and financial disclosures leapt into the over-the-counter trading market.