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Modern Harvest

Writer's picture: Melissa Vonder HaarMelissa Vonder Haar

By Melissa Vonder Haar

Originally published in NACS Magazine, February 2019

Cover story (and first cannabis coverage) for NACS



The 2018 NACS Show in Las Vegas marked the first-ever NACS session on the marijuana industry. While cannabis is still illegal federally, the massive crowds at the “Marijuana: Capitalizing on a Budding Opportunity” session and the strong presences in the overflow room suggest the convenience industry definitely is intrigued.


The interest is understandable. According to cannabis analytics company New Frontier Data, the marijuana industry could cumulatively generate $105.6 billion in federal tax revenue and 1 million new jobs by 2025, if legalized at the federal level.


“This is a movement,” said Scott Sinder, NACS general counsel and a partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP. It’s a movement still very much in its infancy: Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, with the states’ first recreational sales occurring in 2014. Since then, eight other states and the District of Columbia have created a patchwork of state laws governing their intrastate recreational cannabis markets.


Don Rhoads, president and CEO of The Convenience Group LLC, has firsthand experience with the market as the owner and operator of a cannabis production and processing facility in Oroville, Washington. “I really do believe it’s a game-changer,” Rhoads said of Washington’s “experiment” with recreational marijuana. “But it’s going to take some time.”


Sinder and Rhoads joined Ryan Sevigny, founder of High Tide Ranch, and Keelan Gallagher, director of trade marketing and brands for Smoker Friendly International, at the NACS Show session to review the opportunities and challenges surrounding the cannabis market as it currently exists in the United States.


Or, as Sinder put it: “It’s the ultimate tease. We’re going to tell you about how great an opportunity this is … and how, at least through your current businesses, you cannot directly take advantage of it today.”


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