Marty's Travels

My house has wheels

Pot: CO stores and WA stores

USA Today ran an article by a Coloradan comparing their retail stores to Washington’s. And I’ve had the opportunity to do the same in reverse. The two models are very different, but not without similarities.

Washington does not permit retailers to grow or process marijuana. In fact, they can’t even touch to stuff as it is all packaged by processors. Colorado converted medical marijuana operations to retail, so the new storefronts are probably in front of the greenhouses, and steel buildings for indoor operations. The product is displayed openly in gallon jars, the salesperson measures it out and packages it. In Colorado, there is marijuana or the smell everywhere in a store.

There are a lot of marijuana operations in Colorado; you can smell them as you drive on the streets and roads.

Security is tight in both states. Growing marijuana is a very complex production. Next most complex is security. Everyone is required to show proof-of-age, maybe twice or three times before exiting. These checks are captured by cameras. And it goes on from there.

But in each state and in each store, there are differences in how they operate depending on how they interpret the rules, assess how much they want to bend them, and pick those they want to break. It’ll take a while for these subtleties to sort themselves out, but in the meantime it provides a source of confusion for the customer.

Prices in Colorado are half that of Washington, but still twice the unregulated market.

Few retail stores are open in Washington. In Colorado there are many and they are discovering the value of marketing and branding, their image and their professionalism. In other words, competition is happening. Not so in Washington yet.

For the consumer, Washington is by far the best, but Colorado took notice and is now adopting similar provisions. Packages in WA are prominently decorated with lab test results for active contents and status of pollutants. There was no requirement for lab testing in Colorado, so there is no way to determine what you are paying for.

Washington has 6 testing labs, Colorado just opened their third last week.

Edibles are out of control in Colorado, though tighter rules are starting now. Washington spotted this and adjusted their rules right away. But the rules don’t go far enough, in my opinion, and there are going to be problems.

Now, all of this is interesting until Oregon comes online in a few months, and comes up with yet another way of doing things.