Posted on 04/29/2021 6:20:06 AM PDT by real saxophonist
New Mexico marijuana legalization could hurt Colorado's cannabis industry
New Mexico will launch its own legal recreational marijuana market in 2022, but the business done there could hurt Colorado's cannabis industry. Denver7 spoke with a dispensary owner in the border city of Trinidad to explain how dependent his business is on out-of-state customers.
By: Jesse Hughes
Apr 29, 2021
Earlier this month, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed legislation to legalize recreational marijuana in the state.
While marijuana and criminal justice reform advocates say it's a huge win, it could mean big losses for dispensaries in Colorado.
Since 2014, when recreational marijuana went on sale in the Centennial State, business has boomed for Colorado dispensary owners with more than $10 billion in marijuana sales and billions more reaped in tax revenue.
It has also been an economic boost for those in the tourism industry. People from around the country come to Colorado every year to consume cannabis products.
However, New Mexico's legal marijuana market could cut off a huge line of revenue for Colorado dispensaries at the border.
Cities like Trinidad, which sits just north of the border with New Mexico, boasts dozens of dispensaries and has come to rely on the "border model" to survive.
"Right now, about 45% [of customers] came from Texas, 20% came from New Mexico," said Michael Evans, the general manager of The Other Place is Greener dispensary.
"When New Mexico does go legal, we will literally be cut off at Raton Pass. They'll have no reason to continue driving through New Mexico to come enjoy the benefits of our recreational marijuana," Evans said.
One thing a lot of tourists and would-be business owners have come to learn over the years is the inability to sell recreational products at clubs or restaurants. This is because Colorado's law allows municipalities and cities to enact ordinances to prohibit social consumption and, in some cases, operate dispensaries within their jurisdictions.
That's not the case with New Mexico's law, which explicitly denies local governments from prohibiting marijuana companies from setting up shop. It does, however, let them decide where and when they can operate.
Furthermore, it also allows for "cannabis consumption areas." Those will be state-approved, licensed venues both indoor and outdoor. People will even be allowed to consume marijuana in designated hotel rooms, casinos, cigar bars and tobacco stores.
That's simply not allowed in Colorado; social consumption has been a controversial issue well before Colorado voters approved Amendment 64 in the 2012 general election.
But Evans said it would be one of the last gimmicks that could attract tourists from nearby states.
"We have to incentivize them to just continue traveling here so we can see this increased revenue," he said. "Trinidad has been a boom bust city. Right now, we're in a boom, and we need to be doing everything thing we can do not to bust and that is getting ahead of these other states."
New Mexico is the 17th state in the country to legalize recreational marijuana. The market is expected to launch in April 2022
YEAH! ROAD TRIP! Pot and Hatch Chiles!
For your interest.
Colorado will just have to rethink it’s consumption laws in order to keep up with the joneses as it were.
Oh...that’s too bad...Colorado is high enough as it is...
The new unthought of drug wars?
Interesting thought. Trade wars. Maybe my joke about Hatch chiles can actually be useful.
The Cartels will always get their cut.
If you build a business case on a competitive advantage, you're a fool. Most competitive advantages, whether they be based on technology, supply & demand, etc. only lasts a relatively short time. If you don't use that time to come up with the next 'better mousetrap,' your competition certainly will leapfrog you.
I can grow my own in July. Now getting seeds could be an issue
You’re talking about Hatch chiles, right?
Yay! There's that old free market capitalism showing itself again.
Cue the John Denver song.😄
Nope. Weed is legal in Va in July including growing 4 plants. My son had a Hemp farm so we have some experience. I use CBD for sleep and joint pain.
Heartbreaking.
Fished out of the town of Antonito several years back. A pot store there was doing a thriving business on NM clients. It had to pay pretty steep quarterly fees for each strain of pot sold. All fees and taxes were paid in cash as it was prohibited from having a bank account.
They said the cartels, at the time, were pushing cheap heroin to combat the legalization of pot.
I knew what you meant, just messin’ with you. 8~)
That’s still a problem in Colorado, banks don’t want to deal with dispensaries, so they end up as a cash business, and a lot of robberies occur.
Who would ever think American government would lose the so called war on drugs and do a 180 and get into the drug business? I am confounded. I really can’t even rationalize a middle ground but think government should get out of the business of vice.
“We have to incentivize them to just continue traveling here so we can see this increased revenue”
So we are suppose to feel bad for a business which is intentionally aiding out of state people to break the laws of the state that they live in?
My wife and I make a commute every day that goes by an area that the fire station that I last worked at is in. It was a very nice area when I was working there. Since then half a dozen marijuana “dispensaries” run by the Indians have opened. Just like the smoke shops they pay far less taxes to the state. So I assume that their products are heavily discounted compared to non-Indian outlets.
Crime and the number of homeless people have gone through the roof. We completely avoid the area now because it feels very iffy to even drive through when you get off the freeway. My former coworkers tell me that it has been a nightmare. Most of the non-marijuana businesses and restaurants that we used to visit went out of business. Every time we have stopped in the area in the last three years, we have been approached by pan handlers, and if you leave your car for more than a few minutes there is a good chance you will come back to find a broken window.
The exit off the freeway there is almost always jammed back onto the mainline for a half mile or more which causes a slow down in all lanes. As we are driving by we always notice many of out of state plates on the other vehicles. We were speculating just the other day why we see so many out of state plates.
My wife said that she thought it was because we live in a “sanctuary state” because she noticed that the vast majority of the people in the out of state vehicles appeared to be either black or from South of the Border. I said that even though we live more than a hundred miles from our border that it was probably the cheapest marijuana on the I-5 corridore, and driving a few extra miles was worth it when they were buying large quantities to take back and sell.
My conclusion from what I read in this article is that the non-marijuana businesses in Trinidad CO may now have a chance to recover as the marijuana induced crime spree may start to recede as drug dealers from out of state start to go to other closer venues purchase products to sell back home.
If you look at the crime statistics for Trinidad for 2014 just before the marijuana shops started opening they are eyeopening.
As an example... Auto thefts in 2013 were 34 per 100,000 by 2016 they were up to 225 per 100,000 They have continued to creep up since reaching 246 per 100,000 by 2019.
Assaults have gone from 57 per 100,000 in 2013 to 357 per 100,000 in 2019. Burglaries went from 310 per 100,000 in 2013 to 1890 in 2016. Robberies went from 23 per 100,000 in 2013 to 175 per 100,000 in 2017. Rapes went from 11 per 100,000 in 2013 to 62.9 per 100,000 in 2018. The figures vary a bit from year to year as the police figure out how to respond to crime increases related to the marijuana trade. Here is a link to City Data for Trinidad Colorado. You have to go down a bit to find the crime statistics table.
http://www.city-data.com/city/Trinidad-Colorado.html
If I lived in Trinidad Colorado I would be just as mad as I am now about the crime and other problems directly related to the legalization of marijuana in Washington. And this article that concludes that marijuana laws should be loosened further to compete with New Mexico to continue to attract out of state drug dealers is idiotic hogwash. Marijuana businesses are toxic for people and toxic for other businesses whereever they open. They attract crime like “bees to honey”.
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