[jyl]

Everyone should have seen this coming. There was a "pot gold rush" mentality for awhile, people opening pot retail shops everywhere and industrial space being gobbled up for grow space. But just look north and you could have seen how the Washington pot market went boom then bust, and then a little checking would have shown that Oregon was making the same mistakes, which was essentially that too many grower licenses were being issued. Now pot retail shops are really struggling, even with the latest trend of edibles giving them something to sell other than commodity bud. Independents are being forced to sell to chains and small chains are under strain.

The current bubble is in the pot stocks, where investors have somehow convinced themselves that an unprofitable business is better if you do a lot more of it.

I think there is a sustainable business in pot, but it'll be like any other consumer good - you have to have a branded product that you can market as having some distinctive appeal, thus transforming $0.10 of commodity weed into $1.00 of retail product. There is no reason that pot farming should ultimately be a more lucrative, stable or cash-flow positive business than, say, tomato or soybean farming, or if you're optimistic, growing commodity wine grapes. Or for pot retailing to be more lucrative than retail stores selling beer and cigarettes. The money will be in value-added processing of the commodity pot into the end product and especially branded product.

I expect the industry is, or should be, working hard on developing marketing and branding strategies. Youtube influencers to the rescue?