Marijuana companies join forces to expand beyond state lines

Marijuana businesses face many unfair roadblocks that normal businesses never worry about simply because the federal government refuses to budge on the illegality of cannabis. Certain state laws allow marijuana dispensaries to exist, but they cannot choose to expand nationwide in the same manner a fast food restaurant might. The federally illegal sticker on marijuana means even the states with legal marijuana programs cannot move any products across state lines for fear of federal involvement. Some canna-businesses have found a loop hole in this system by either establishing a partnership between companies and their manufacturing centers in different states, or by utilizing two different states with similarly regulated marijuana programs. Vireo Health is a medical marijuana dispensary that sells products in both New York and Minnesota as their programs are very similar in their restriction of only non-smokable forms of marijuana.

For the moment, legal marijuana companies are too consumed by the state and local laws that are enforced to worry about federal ones that aren’t. The rules weigh heavily on companies that have a presence in more than one state because every state with a legal marijuana industry has its own laws on matters as varied as packaging, dosages in edibles (if they allow edibles) and dispensary security.