Early dispensary operators in California like me sold Americans the dream of average people working hard and reaping the rewards. Legalization gained favor with the public, especially during the economic crash in 2008, because it could fill government coffers, revitalize Main Street, and excite Wall Street. 

Coming from nothing, we got rich in the cannabis industry quick, and I am partly to blame for the perception that cannabis is some golden cash cow. People saw us moving boxes of cash in the music video for Business Man, but I was actually depicting our reality—we were making so much cash we had to rent a house just to count and store it. (I go into more detail on this in my book High Price). I opened a state-compliant dispensary in Modesto, California in 2006 when most people were too afraid to do it, especially in the conservative Central Valley. Fear and municipal-level bans in other parts of Central California turned my business into a very profitable island. 

According to the forensics on my case, we brought in over $9.2 million over two years, which we paid state and federal taxes on. Our success earned me a “continuing criminal enterprise” conviction and a nearly 22-year sentence in federal prison. Had we made just $800,000 more, I would have been looking at a mandatory life sentence. So while people looked at what I was doing or the headlines Steve DeAngelo was making with Harborside’s millions in profit at the time, they weren’t completely aware of the price some of us had to pay for it. 

The headlines generated by these early dispensaries neglected to say that we had little competition for a high-demand product. While we were paying state and local taxes, there were no layers of state and local excise taxes like there are today. Today, to corner the market like we did you need deep pockets and influential friends. And you don’t have to worry about the Feds. 

This situation, of course, is why it is so important for us to be engaged in the political process right now, as federal law changes. As new states roll out legalization laws, they all fall into this trap of deciding who gets what cut before the seeds are even planted. Newer legalization laws include different social equity provisions meant to repair the harms done by the War on Drugs, but almost all state laws make it very difficult to impossible for a small operator to succeed. And in many instances, they put equity applicants in a financially worse position than they were before they “won” their license.

So this fall we will be in Washington DC meeting with lawmakers and giving them copies of High Price to help them better understand our industry, and also to offer our assistance in crafting meaningful social equity policies that will be successful.