The social and judicial challenge for marijuana Coffee Shop entrepreneurs
Recent research by Civilized, PSB Research and Burson Cohn & Wolf shows that while two thirds of Americans support the legalization of marijuana, many people don’t enjoy catching a whiff of the smoke.
20% of Americans indicated that they hated smelling marijuana in public while a whopping 72% of non-marijuana consuming Canadians indicated the same objection to the smell.
This worrying paradox of openness to consumption vs negativity to the effects of its consumption could go towards explaining why there is such slow development of public spaces where the plant can be enjoyed responsibility
When cannabis was made legal in Canada back in 2018 some boldly claimed that cities such as Toronto could become the “new Amsterdam” of cannabis related tourism. However reality seems to be telling a different story.
Amsterdam itself, despite a long history of tolerance of the recreation consumption of marijuana products in their famous Coffee Shops, has recently been imposing more and more restrictions on their “pot and sex” fueled tourism industry.
The success of “pot and sex” tourism has resulted in Amsterdam’s more cultural highlights such as the museums of Anne Frank, Van Gogh and Rembrandt being ignored. There are also debates around whether tourists should be given the same tolerance privileges when engaging in recreational drug use.
North America will need to have long term plans to avoid this future problem as it is expected that the rise of public areas for marijuana consumption will inevitably cause a major rise in domestic and international tourism.
The US capital is one such area, with Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) aiming to push a bill to legalize marijuana sales in the capital, allowing for retail purchase and on-site consumption. Her bill will also aim to legalize cannabis delivery services across DC.
Will such legislation see DC monuments ignored as new marijuana related landmarks start to dot the culturally significant city?
The jury is still out as these North American Coffee Shops will not only need to navigate legislation around on-site consumption, but also a myriad of complex city level laws around zoning, permissions to sell alcohol and even trading hours.
Back in 2016, the World Famous Cannabis Cafe in Portland Oregon had to shut down after the state revised its Indoor Clean Air act to include vape products and marijuana. This is just one of many examples of the challenges faced by marijuana entrepreneurs in the public consumption space.
So while marijuana is a profitable plant, developing a profitable Coffee Shop model still seems to be a long way away.
Entrepreneurs in this space will need to navigate social biases, complex laws and a generally negative non-consumer population who will place many different obstacles in the way of this type of establishment.
At the time of this piece, Throwne Consulting Group (TCG) is not affiliated with any of the companies or individuals cited. TCG is a leading boutique PR agency serving entrepreneurs in emerging industries such as distributed ledger technology (blockchain and cryptocurrency), cannabis and big data.
