Reeferfront Times

[WEED NEWS]

Written by DANNY WICENTOWSKI

Missouri mar ed its first ever sale of legal cannabis one year ago last week, but amid the flourishing of new businesses and prod ucts, dispensaries are still banned by state regulation from advertis ing even the most basic promo tions for offers like price cuts and daily deals.

Jack Cardetti, a spokesman with cannabis industry group MoCann Trade, says the ban is frustrating to patients navigating the new market — and as a matter of pol icy, particularly challenging for dispensaries to follow.

“What we have here,” Cardetti notes, “is both confusion and a moving target.”

Back in 2018, Cardetti was among the activists behind the campaign that successfully placed a medical cannabis initiative on the ballot. Ultimately, more than 60 percent of voters gave the green light for medical cannabis to be added to the Missouri Con stitution. But the text of that con stitutional amendment isn’t the source for the ban on promotions.

Instead, the issue comes down to the set of rules instituted post passage by the Department of Health and Senior Services, the state agency which regulates the cannabis industry. In fact, the spe cific prohibition on promotions is contained entirely in a single thir teen word sentence “ ispensary facilities shall not disburse medi cal marijuana as part of a promo tional event.” t first, the rule didn’t appear to prevent dispensaries from getting the word out about ongoing sales or discounts. Some dispensaries printed stac s of fliers to distrib ute to patients shopping at their bric and mortar stores. or instance, one flier from a St. Louis dispensary, distributed in late May of this year, offered a set of daily discounts, including 20 percent off for veterans every Monday, and a Friday “2 for $80” deal on eighths of flower. s it turns out, such a flier would actually violate DHSS’s def inition of a “promotional event.” The department moved to clamp down on similar promotions this summer.

In July, cannabis license holders received a letter signed by Andrea Balkenbush, the state cannabis program’s compliance director.

As the letter explained, the de partment’s perspective on “pro motional event” isn’t simply tar geting special events outside a dispensary but encompasses “any activity, advertisement, or public ity designed to increase interest in purchasing medical marijuana or a particular product or brand of medical marijuana.” s first reported by Greenway Magazine, the DHSS letter offered a set of examples in an apparent attempt to illustrate the rule’s ex tent. Advertising price discounts? That’s banned, the letter noted, because “that would result in disbursing medical marijuana as part of a promotional event.”

Holiday pricing is also out un der the DHSS ban. Whether it’s linked to April 20 or Christmas, such a policy “would also result in disbursing medical marijuana as part of a promotional event.”

What is not banned under the rules, the letter continues, are ac tions by dispensaries to reduce their own prices “without noting or advertising the reduction.” Also permitted are policies “es tablishing discounted pricing for classes of patients such as those designated as low income on their medical mari uana identification card,” the letter concluded.

The letter appears to have had its intended effect. A perusing of the online ordering platforms maintained by five area cannabis operators — accounting for more than a dozen physical dispensary locations in St. Louis — shows lists of products and prices, and not much else. here are no crossed out prices or brand specific dis counts. (Anecdotally, RFT learned of some dispensary discounts dur ing previous purchases, but only through asking employees direct ly at the point of transaction. )

Earlier this month, the Riverfront Times reached out to DHSS with questions about the depart ment’s expansive definition of “promotional event.”

In response, spokeswoman Lisa Cox maintained that the depart ment “has interpreted this rule narrowly using simple definitions of what promotion means in com mon usage.”

Cox added that the department has not needed to pursue “en forcement actions” against violat ing dispensaries, writing, “At this time, the facilities with whom we have addressed issues have all ad justed their actions to remain in compliance with the rule.

“Importantly,” she continued, “the Department’s rule does not prohibit a facility from commu nicating its current pricing, so pa tients will always be able to com pare prices among facilities.”

Still, while DHSS may describe the rule as narrowly applied, the actions of area dispensaries show an array of efforts that could con ceivably be defined as “any activ ity” that increases interest in pur chasing cannabis. Dispensaries still use their social media page to discuss specific products and sug gested treatments for those suf fering from health problems like chronic pain or insomnia. Others feature interviews with dispen sary employees or budtenders discussing their favorite products. Some online ordering forms in clude percentage discounts for veterans or bulk purchases — of fers not entirely dissimilar to those on a flier of daily discounts.

Meanwhile, most dispensaries maintain some kind of rewards program, offering discounts or products for patients who accrue sufficient “points through pur chases.

Do those examples cross the DHSS line for a promotional event? It’s not clear. Citing dis cussions with dispensary owners, MoCannTrade’s Cardetti says it’s anybody’s guess.

“From our view and the view of our members, this is a solution in search of a problem,” he notes. “We’ve heard from several mem bers that a patient will go in the front door, show their ID and their patient ID, they get checked into the system, go to the back of the store, and only then an employee would hand the patient a list of dis counts for the day — and even that runs afoul of the new rules.”

To Cardetti, the rules seem to contradict the intent of the con stitutional amendment that estab lished legalized medical cannabis in the first place.

“Only 145,000 Missouri patients and caregivers can even get to the sales floor of a medical mari ua na dispensary; the general pub lic doesn’t have access to this,” he adds. “If you’re not able to tell patients the effectiveness of certain products or prices, even in that controlled environment, that’s really getting far from the mission.” n