On The Job: Missouri nears landmark number in marijuana industry sales

Open for Business Extras

When compiling our publication’s Open for Business section, I frequently leave out some interesting tidbits due to space, among other considerations. Here are a couple recent items:

Bricks & Minifigs
You never know when a business investment opportunity might arise, as Phil Vice, who co-owns the Springfield shop of Bricks & Minifigs, could certainly attest. He and his wife, Tiffany, are local franchisees of a nationwide chain of stores where customers can buy, sell and trade new and used Lego pieces, sets and minifigures. Vice said while he spent the last 11 years in disaster emergency response work, he was no stranger to working retail. From 2004-10, he served as general manager of what is now called CPO-Redeemed Books & More, a discount Christian store, previously dubbed Redeemed Music and Books. A work-related visit last year to Portland, Oregon, where his then-employer Medical Teams International is based, led to a Bricks & Minifigs store visit. The pieces of owning a franchise started to assemble from there, he said.

Breast Imaging of the Ozarks
The owners who started Breast Imaging of the Ozarks, which opened last fall in Farmers Park, wanted to bring their two decades of combined experience in health care to launch a different kind of clinic. Dr. Amanda Lackey said she and her husband, Dr. Logan Lackey, decided to exit Mercy Springfield Communities to provide breast and bone health screening and diagnostic imaging services with a focus on patient care, comfort and convenience in a spa-like setting. The overarching goal, she said, is to reach more women for breast cancer screenings and keep them returning – something she added should lead to an overall decrease in morbidity and mortality from the disease. The American Cancer Society said nearly 300,000 cases of breast cancer are estimated this year. That represents roughly 30% of all new cancers diagnosed in women.

Missouri nears landmark number in marijuana industry sales

Recreational weed sales are reaching new highs in Missouri. In March, just the second month since the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services greenlit the start of the adult-use program, the Show-Me State sold $126.2 million in cannabis. It’s a roughly 22% jump from sales in February, which didn’t incorporate a full month, as dispensaries began selling Feb. 3.

Of the March total, Missouri sold $93.5 million of adult-use, or recreational, cannabis and an additional $32.7 million in medical marijuana. The increase was largely attributable to adult-use sales, which jumped 30% from its February debut.

With this month including April 20, the annual cannabis-themed holiday, industry officials are expecting an even bigger sales haul.

Judging by the cumulative performance of adult-use sales in February and March, Missouri is on pace to surpass $1 billion in its first 12 months. That’s a lot of green.

Some of that growing weed market is likely coming from residents in border states, as Illinois is the only Missouri neighbor that has legal recreational sales. It would seem even Illinois marijuana customers are crossing into Missouri, based on data from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which monitors adult-use cannabis sales. While out-of-state resident sales in Illinois reached $33.7 million in March, comprising 25% of total adult-use marijuana, it’s a dip from the 31% of the retail market the state produced in January – the last month before Missouri launched its adult-use program. In 2022, Illinois’ out-of-state resident sales averaged nearly $40 million per month, an amount yet to be reached in any of this year’s first three months.

One factor is likely the significant difference the two states have in taxing recreational weed. In Missouri, legal purchases of adult-use products are taxed at a flat 6%, unless a municipality or county passes an additional 3% tax, which was voted in by eight regional municipalities in this month’s election. Medical marijuana is taxed at 4%. The Illinois taxes on recreational cannabis start at 16.25% and go as high as 31.25% on the state level.

It remains to be seen how much more Missouri will cut into marijuana sales in Illinois, but it’s clear that the ceiling in this state is yet to be reached – and may not for some time.

All in a Day’s Work

I recently had the pleasure to spend a day in Republic to shadow business owner and chamber of commerce leader Macy Mitchell as part of Springfield Business Journal’s Day in the Life series.  The experience reminded me of my two decades working in Marshfield. Even though Republic’s population is well above Marshfield’s – by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, according to the U.S. Census Bureau – it still retains a bit of its small-town feel where you can run into people you know on any given day. I experienced that when I dropped by Classic Rock Coffee in Republic on Highway 60 to grab a drink and check some emails before heading to a chamber membership luncheon. Apparently, Mitchell had the same idea as he entered the shop about 15 minutes after me to do the same thing. While I spent much of the day following Mitchell around, this was an unplanned run-in in which the order was reversed.