The cannabis business is about more than growing and selling cannabis. It is an entire ecosystem of companies and professionals that make it all work.
There's no question that Florida's medical marijuana laws are shaping up to be some of the most restrictive to small scale cultivators or dispensaries. Seven dispensing organizations / medical marijuana treatment centers is something new to state cannabis laws - no other state is set up this way, it would be uniquely Florida (but then again, what isn't).
But there has never been more opportunity in legal marijuana then there is right now at this moment in Florida. And it's only going to get bigger.
Providing medicine to over half a million patients is no easy task. It's going to take an large coordinated ecosystem of doctors, consultants, retailers, delivery drivers, caregivers, scientists, cultivators, software engineers, attorneys, packagers and so on.
The 'picks and shovels' are always more profitable than the gold they mine. Servicing this system is where the real revenue will come.
Dr. Paul Carney, MD, Professor, Chief of Pediatric Neurology – University of North Carolina School of Medicine, likened the promise of endocannabinoid research to that of Gene Therapy and Stem Cell Therapy.
There's more to cannabis than THC.
Much of the research is not focused on THC, the psychoactive element of cannabis that law enforcement cares about, but on CBD, the non-psychoactive element of cannabis that has been shown to be successful in treating epilepsy and carries with it immense health and wellness benefits.
CBD is even becoming more popular on the recreational side of the cannabis market, now commanding twice the price of its THC counterpart in many retail marijuana shops.
The good news is CBD-rich hemp oil, so long as its under .03% THC, is legal and is right now being sold and used all over the US. It represents one of the hottest business opportunities in America right now because CBD (along with other non-restricted cannabinoids) provides such a wide variety of health benefits and is applicable in a multitude of products form creams and lotions to sublingual drops, candy and baked goods.
If your heart is set on having your own brand of cannabis products, take a look at CBD. Every big marijuana company in the country is. They are scrambling trying to expand their cannabis brands nationally by adding hemp based CBD to their product offerings. THIS MARKET IS WIDE OPEN.
And if your heart is set on owning a marijuana company that grows and/or sells premium cannabis in the state of Florida you are going to need two things:
Patience and preparation.
Cannabis prohibition will end in the United States within the next five years. When that market opens, it will favor the well prepared. The winners will be the most knowledgeable and the most well-connected. That knowledge and those connections don't happen overnight. They are built over time. They take patience and perseverance.
We are going over all of this in great detail.