Dear Pot Lawyer,
My budtender says there are too many people with weed licenses nowadays. Is the state going to do anything to keep pot farmers from going out of business?
This is a hard issue that has been getting a lot of traction over the past few months. Right now, the state isn’t doing anything to limit the number of licenses awarded by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC), whether for production, processing, wholesaling, or retailing weed. If you are invested in this industry, it’s a fight. And it’s an open question as to whether the state will intervene, or let the market bottom out.
To be clear, the OLCC could not cap the number of licenses it awards, even if it wanted to. The relevant statute says that OLCC can only control canopy sizes, although last I spoke with them, they had no intention of doing so. On the grow side, there are two main sizes, or “tiers,” for indoor production licenses, and two main tiers for outdoor grows. The outdoor tiers are larger, topping out at 40,000 square feet (which is roughly an acre). As of December 15, OLCC reports that it had received 1,841 applications to produce cannabis, with 876 active licenses. It’s not clear how many of those applications were for indoor or outdoor grow, but that’s a lot of weed regardless.