Medical cannabis is a complex topic viewed from multiple perspectives. You have the patient’s perspective, a perspective filtered through the lens of what can often be a debilitating health condition. A doctor’s perspective is similar. Politicians and bureaucrats come at it from the perspective of the government’s role in regulating medical products and procedures. And then you have the business perspective. It is the one most often left out of discussions.
The business perspective is unique in the sense that it is, by default, selfish. But before you condemn business owners, remember that the business owner’s desire to make a profit is no different than your desire to earn a living. Money makes the world go around. We all need it to survive. Business owners are no different.
Medical cannabis is a viable business opportunity that allows entrepreneurs to make money. They can help a certain segment of the population at the same time. But ultimately, no business owner is going to work to provide medical cannabis if doing so is a money losing proposition.
Operating a Business Takes Money
If you will, take a moment to consider the growers, processors, and dispensaries that work together to get medical marijuana from the field to the patient’s hands. It takes an awful lot of time and effort to make it happen. It also takes money. Business owners invest tremendous financial resources just to get their operations up and running. They have to pay for licenses, equipment, space, and more.
What you might not realize is the tremendous amount of overhead required to run a medical marijuana-based business. Even Utahmarijuana.org, an organization that helps patients obtain their Medical Cannabis Cards, had certain overhead expenses that had to be covered long before they started seeing their first patients.
Business owners have to be able to recover those initial costs at some point. In addition, they have to generate enough revenues to pay their employees and their taxes. Then they have to cover daily operating expenses. Finally, they have to put some profit in their pockets. It is not worth all the trouble otherwise.
Government Is Not the Solution
You might be tempted to think that government is the solution to all the problems marijuana-based businesses face. If so, think again. Government rarely does anything efficiently. Whenever government gets involved in things, both red tape and prices skyrocket.
Our society can debate all day long over how much influence government should have on the medical marijuana industry. Most of us would agree that government has a role to play. But how expansive that role should be is far from settled. The one thing we know is that government regulation designed to inhibit business often does more harm than good.
Let Them Do What They Do
A studious look at how business works makes it clear that entrepreneurs need to be free to do what they do. When business flourishes, so does innovation. Think about it. Businesses being allowed to do what they do led to the development of that smartphone in your pocket. Entrepreneurs have given us everything from the public internet to the cars we drive to the jobs we hold.
The business of medical marijuana is a good thing. It needs to be given the opportunity to flourish with as few government impediments as possible. If that happens, we will eventually benefit from an industry providing a lengthy list of cannabis-based medicines for treating a variety of conditions. If it doesn’t happen, any benefits we would otherwise derive from medical marijuana will remain artificially limited.
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