COLUMBIA, Md. — Black Friday is coming early this year for medical dispensaries that added on recreational licenses.
They’re expecting a massive increase in customers on the first of July.
“Other states have shown an uptick of anywhere from 10-20% of the population consumes cannabis so we’re talking about 400,000 to 1,000,000 people and our current customer base is 150,000," said Mitch Trellis, the co-owner of Remedy.
That customer base increase comes with months of exclusivity.
While the state holds a lottery for the first round of recreational licenses, only medical dispensaries like Remedy, who paid to add on the recreational sale, can sell marijuana to anyone.
Other companies likely won’t have the license before the end of the year and might not be ready to sell until this time next year.
Dispensaries are preparing for more sales.
“Lots of parking, lots of registers and you know the most important thing, lots of people because you know the biggest bottleneck is people," said Trellis.
They’ve also been stocking up on product and speaking with vendors about the upcoming increase in demand.
“The vendors need to be increasing their supply, as they are and cannabis is a plant so increasing supply isn’t something that happens overnight with the base product which is a plant that takes 9, 18, 36 weeks to grow depending on what stage you start from," said Trellis.
With recreational cannabis being legal, dispensaries are expecting customers with little or no knowledge of the plant to come inside.
They need to have a way to educate them.
“We tried to create a platform where the vendors have a chance to educate and we do believe that will address a lot of the uncertainty," said Trellis.
Trellis anticipates that every dispensary will have hundreds of people on day one of legalization in Maryland.
