Greater St. Louis NORML knows that October can be one of the scariest months of the year with goblins, ghouls, and ghosts spreading haunting vibes everywhere. Well get ready for some really fun and scary Halloweed predictions when Amendment 3 wins at the ballot on November 8, 2022. Our NORML cannabis witches and warlocks gazed into their crystal orbs and here’s their 25 predictions:
1. Amendment 3 will pass on November 8, 2022 legalizing cannabis in Missouri with at least a 57% voter approval, a 30% voter disapproval, and 13% of all voters won’t bother to vote on this measure. Missouri will become a legal state 30 days after election day on December 8, 2022.
2. Voters in five states will approve cannabis legalization on Nov. 8th, including Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota boosting the legal states to 24. This will add more pressure on the Feds to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
3. Amendment 3 will be responsible for skyrocketing cannabis prices 90 days after legalization when legal sales begin. The new recreational market will cause cannabis products to fly off the shelves as recreational consumers line up for legal sales and deplete both medical and recreational cannabis products. Cultivators will not be able to keep up.
4. DHSS will underestimate the consumer demand for recreational cannabis and will only issue the minimum required number of adult-use licenses for cultivation, manufacturing, and retail facilities. Supply side shortages will drive up prices on cannabis into spring 2024 until production catches up to demand.
5. Missouri’s recreational cannabis customers will make up only 70% of all sales in 2023/2024. The remaining 30% of sales will come from cannabis consumers in Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Iowa, Tennessee, and Kentucky who will benefit from Amendment 3’s low 6% tax rate. Legal cannabis sales will top $90 million in 2023 and soar to $550 million in 2024. Medical cannabis sales will fall to $125 million by 2024.
6. As many as 10 Missouri communities across the state will attempt to “opt out” of the recreational cannabis market by banning stores in their cities through local ballot initiatives. Only two will succeed. All other measures to ban cannabis business will fail.
7. Seventy percent of Missouri cities, villages, communities, and taxing districts across the state will opt to add the constitutionally allowed 3% local tax to the 6% state tax on cannabis products boosting the overall tax rate on a legal cannabis product to 9%.
8. Prices in the unregulated and untaxed legacy cannabis market will increase. As legal cannabis products become scarcer and prices rise, cannabis consumers will opt for better, more potent cannabis grown by legacy craft cannabis cultivators.
9. The Missouri medical cannabis market will shrink by 70%. More than 140,000 medical patients will not renew their medical ID cards by the end of 2024. Cannabis patients will forgo the expense of a medical certification exam and the cost of the DHSS medical ID card and buy their medicine from a recreational retail shop instead.
10. Legal cannabis prices will start to collapse beginning in the third quarter of 2024 as more cultivation facilities come online. The average price for one eighth ounce of cannabis flower across Missouri will fall below $25.00.
11. Applications for micro-business licenses will soar to 4,200 or more. Applicants will have no risk in filing because their $1,500 filing fee will be completely refunded if they are not selected through the lottery process. If selected, their first-year license fee will be waved to give them a jump start into legal cannabis retail store or cultivation ownership.
12. Missouri will experience the largest 420 events in the history of the state because of passage of Amendment 3. St. Louis city will have a 420 celebration that will attract more than 50,000 cannabis activists and will be held in one of two places: Soulard, or The Grove.
13. Cannabis themed music festivals will be more FUN. Ninety percent of all cannabis themed business conferences, events, music festivals, seminars, and educational events will allow public consumption. Attendance will soar at cannabis music festivals as the fear of being arrested while traveling to a festival evaporates. Plenty of legacy and legal cannabis products will be available at these events.
14. Fifteen percent of all privately owned (no chain restaurants) restaurants and bars, located in St. Louis City and County, metropolitan Kansas City, and Columbia will provide an outdoor garden or patio section for public consumption of cannabis to attract a new clientele.
15. Sixty percent of all “Vote NO!” advocates will have a change of heart on election day and “Vote Yes on 3!” They will realize there will be no credible legalization option in 2023.
16. Rep. Tony Lovasco ( R), St. Charles, Lincoln counties, will file a bill similar to the “Cannabis Freedom Act” as a Joint Resolution Bill to legalize cannabis in Missouri with no license caps, no possession limits, and removal of cannabis from the Missouri CSL (controlled substances list). This bill will pass the House with 85% approval, but will fail in the Senate by a 55% disapproval.
17. Alderwoman Megan Green will win the race for President of the Board of Alderman in the City of St. Louis. Alder Green will spearhead an initiative that will decriminalize the use of psychedelics for medical use in St. Louis, and St. Louis will be the only city in Missouri to do so.
18. Missouri will be host to a Cannabis Cup Festival in 2023 that will attract 40,000 attendees, allow open consumption, attract more than 300 vendors, and become a yearly event for years to come.
19. Missouri will experience a mini real estate boom as cannabis users migrate from California and Colorado, as well other “high cost of living” legal states to Missouri. Missouri’s new status as a cannabis-friendly legal state will attract supporters from all across the US and eventually turn Missouri from a red state to purple.
20. Missouri will attract 20 new cannabis tech firms that develop advanced growing technology, new hemp and cannabis extraction technology, plant science genetic and management software, and new canopy management systems for outdoor greenhouses.
21. Employment in Missouri’s legal cannabis industry will double expanding to more than 20,000 employees.
22. Budtenders will organize into a union by the end of 2024 to increase their pay, benefits, and educational opportunities. A budtender’s certification will be implemented by a cannabis industry association.
23. Less than 10 people across Missouri will be cited for public consumption of cannabis in 2023 as a civil infraction. Ninety-five percent of all Missouri communities will deprioritize issuing citations for public consumption of cannabis by 2024 because of the waste of law enforcement time and resources pursuing this petty offense.
24. Less than 600 expungements will be processed by the end of 2023 mainly because of the difficulty in locating court records relating to cannabis convictions, the lack of standardized methods to locate and process cannabis convictions for expungement, and the deprioritization of processing expungements to the lowest priority by the courts. Nonprofit groups dedicated to helping felons expunge their records across Missouri, except for one, will jump in to assist in the expungement process. By the end of 2024, more that 10,000 expungements will have been processed, and that number will surge to more than 80,000 by 2025. The total amount of expungements will top out at 325,000 in ten years.
25. Cannabis tourism in Missouri will rapidly expand as cannabis themed lodging, hotels, resorts, bed & breakfast, and AirBnB offerings become established. Canoe outfitters and resorts that prohibit cannabis use will rapidly lose clientele to their competition who welcome cannabis users.
Bonus Prediction: Cannabis will become a mainstream product in Missouri when Amendment 3 is passed on November 8, 2022. Cannabis themed television and radio shows will proliferate. New print media, including magazines, newspapers, and other publications, will be entirely devoted to the cannabis lifestyle and cannabis consumer. Cannabis and hemp themed stores will offer clothing, products, and accessories. Life will be better in Missouri!