在佛蒙特州，监管机构担心大麻行业发展过快

【中美创新时报2024 年 10 月 7 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）零售娱乐销售合法化两年后，佛蒙特州的大麻控制委员会希望喘口气，重新评估如何以佛蒙特州为中心保持该行业的可持续性。《波士顿环球报》记者Kevin Cullen 对此作了下述报道。

佛蒙特州蒙彼利埃——2022 年 6 月，即零售娱乐大麻销售即将开始的三个月前，该州立法财政办公室预测佛蒙特州将在两年内拥有一个刚刚起步的大麻产业，销售额达 8600 万美元。

但到了今年 6 月，数字甚至比预期的还要好：80 家零售店的销售额达到 1.28 亿美元，为公共金库带来了约 2500 万美元的税收收入——税收收入超过了酒类销售。

从大多数指标来看，佛蒙特州合法大麻产业的推广取得了成功。但发展并不均衡，药房集中在少数几个社区，而该州大部分地区迄今为止拒绝开设任何药房。因此，佛蒙特州的监管机构正在喘口气，本月暂停了新的零售许可证申请和面积超过 1,000 平方英尺的种植面积，同时审查许可证在全州的分配情况。

与此同时，立法机构已指示该州的大麻管制委员会调整其颁发许可证的方式，将人口和密度考虑在内，以期在全州更均匀地分配许可证——这项任务因该州只有大约三分之一的城市和城镇投票批准在其社区内进行零售而变得更加困难。

这导致一些社区出现了商店集群，同时极大地限制了种植者的可用市场。例如，在人口 2,200 人的小镇莫里斯维尔，这个小镇有 4 家药房，还有 2 家正在筹备中，而邻近的、规模大得多的斯托，一个全年开放的旅游胜地，却没有一家药房，因为该镇尚未投票允许开设药房。

大麻管制委员会主席詹姆斯·佩珀在接受采访时表示，佛蒙特州大麻产业的推广和稳步增长进展顺利。但他也认为佛蒙特州可以向俄勒冈州和俄克拉荷马州等其他州学习，这两个州不受管制的增长导致价格剧烈波动，许多种植者和零售商破产。

他说，暂停发放新的零售许可证旨在让监管机构有时间分析和找到解决他所说的“许可证不自然分配”的方法，这种分配导致该州三分之二的城市和城镇没有药房。目前尚不清楚暂停将持续多久。

官员们表示，在监管机构和立法者的积极鼓励下，大麻行业在许多方面都试图效仿该州成功的精酿啤酒行业，保持相对较小的规模和本地采购——或者换句话说，以佛蒙特州为中心。

佛蒙特州一些最受欢迎的精酿啤酒商，如斯托的 The Alchemist，有意识地限制了产量，并拒绝了企业集团的丰厚收购要约，称他们希望保留当地的控制权和质量标准。

十年前，佩珀作为时任州长皮特·舒姆林的助手，被要求起草该州第一个合法大麻产业计划，他说佛蒙特州一直致力于让大麻的种植、测试和销售掌握在佛蒙特州人手中，而不是让财力雄厚的外州利益集团进入。

“我们并不是想成为保护主义者，”佩珀说，“但正如我们在其他州看到的那样，太多和太大都行不通。”

州监管机构最初设想了六个不同等级的种植面积，从 1,000 平方英尺到 25,000 平方英尺不等，但他们尚未实施最大的等级，而是更倾向于为规模较小的夫妻店种植者颁发许可证。州记录显示，在 383 名获得许可的种植者中，只有 13 人使用的面积大于 5,000 平方英尺，其中 289 人处于 1,000 平方英尺的等级。

佛蒙特州种植者协会执行董事杰弗里·皮祖蒂罗 (Geoffrey Pizzutillo) 代表该州的持牌种植者，他说他的组织基本同意监管机构将种植面积保持在较低水平的决心。

“我们认为佛蒙特州不需要​​超过 5,000 平方英尺的种植面积，”他说。“说到大麻，我还没见过种植面积超过 5,000 平方英尺的优质大麻。”

除了保持质量外，较小的种植面积也符合佛蒙特州的人口结构，并允许更多种植者进入该行业，皮祖蒂罗说。

至于地理饱和度，他认为该州从一开始就把事情搞反了，先将销售合法化，然后让各个城市和城镇自行选择加入。他说，一旦立法机构投票通过零售合法化，就应该在所有社区都使其合法化，并让这些社区承担选择退出的责任。

首席州监管机构佩珀 (Pepper) 表示，一些城市和城镇已经过度饱和。例如，伯灵顿有 13 家零售店，伯灵顿是该州最大的城市，人口为 45,000 人。

“伯灵顿无法维持 14 或 15 家实体店，”佩珀说。

就在佩珀说这番话几天后，伯灵顿的 Grass Queen 宣布关闭。店主 Jahala Dudley 在一份声明中表示，竞争过于激烈，并表示每年 10,000 美元的许可费“确保 Grass Queen 无法实现财务可行性”。

自两年前开始销售以来，全州只有三家商店关闭，但监管机构认为，如果他们不暂时限制许可证并想办法将其分散到更广泛的州内，可能会有更多商店关闭。监管机构强调稳定市场的重要性——对零售商、种植者和客户而言。

大麻管制委员会的重新调整对 Miriam Wood 来说很合适，她拥有 The Tea House，这是 White River Junction 一英里范围内的三家大麻店之一，White River Junction 是上谷镇哈特福德的一个村庄，与新罕布什尔州接壤。她说，现在生意很稳定，但该地区再多一家零售店就可能危及现有的零售店。

“不仅对我而言，而且对整个行业而言，要想取得成功，必须有某种平衡，”她说。“我们已经进入两年了。现在是暂停的好时机，看看哪些进展顺利，哪些进展不顺利，重新评估、调整，并保持这个市场的成功。”

立法者今年通过了一项法案，他们希望该法案能够允许监管机构调整监管规则，以更好地反映市场情况，并更好地在全州范围内分布零售店的数量。

迈克尔·麦卡锡是圣奥尔本斯的州议员，也是该法案的发起人。他说，大麻行业的扎根和发展方式为修订大麻管制委员会的权力提供了蓝图，以更好地反映该州的目标，即保持大麻行业与佛蒙特州等小州的规模相当。

“我们试图将其保留为一个手工艺品市场，”麦卡锡说。“我们不会像其他州那样被大公司控制，广告不受控制。拥有一个小市场很适合我们。让美元在当地流通。”

题图：Grass Queen 的运营总监 Kierstin Wall 周五在佛蒙特州伯灵顿帮助了一位顾客。Grass Queen 最近宣布将关闭。老板 Jahala Dudley 在一份声明中表示竞争过于激烈，并表示每年 10,000 美元的许可费“确保 Grass Queen 在财务上不可行。”Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist 为《波士顿环球报》供稿

附原英文报道：

In Vermont, regulators are worried about the cannabis industry getting too high

Two years after retail recreational sales became legal, the state’s Cannabis Control Board wants to take a breath and reassess how to keep the industry sustainable and Vermont-centric

By Kevin Cullen Globe Staff,Updated October 7, 2024 

Kierstin Wall, chief of operations at Grass Queen, helped a customer in Burlington, Vt., on Friday. Grass Queen recently announced it was closing. In a statement, owner Jahala Dudley cited too much competition and said the $10,000 annual license fee “ensures that Grass Queen cannot be financially viable.”Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist For The Boston Globe

MONTPELIER, Vt. — In June 2022, three months before retail recreational marijuana sales were about to start, the state’s legislative fiscal office predicted Vermont would have a fledgling cannabis industry doing $86 million in sales within two years.

But when June rolled around this year, the numbers were even better than expected: Eighty retail shops registered $128 million in sales, kicking back some $25 million in taxes into public coffers — more tax revenue than from alcohol sales.

By most measures, the rollout of the legal cannabis industry in Vermont has been a success. But it’s been uneven, with a concentration of dispensaries in a handful of communities, while most of the state has so far refused to host any. So Vermont regulators are taking a breath, this month halting applications for new retail licenses and cultivation areas larger than 1,000 square feet while they review how licenses are distributed around the state.

The Legislature, meanwhile, has instructed the state’s Cannabis Control Board to tweak the way it awards licenses, taking population and density into consideration, with a view to more evenly distribute them across the state — a task made more difficult by the fact that only about one-third of the state’s cities and towns have voted to approve retail sales within their communities.

That has created clusters of stores in some communities, while greatly limiting available markets to growers. In tiny Morrisville, for example, the town of 2,200 people has four dispensaries, and two more in the pipeline, while neighboring and much larger Stowe, a year-round tourist mecca, has none because the town hasn’t voted to allow them.

In an interview, James Pepper, chair of the Cannabis Control Board, said the rollout and steady growth of the industry in Vermont has gone well. But he also believes Vermont can learn from other states, including Oregon and Oklahoma, where unregulated growth led to wild price fluctuations, with many growers and retailers going out of business.

He said the pause on new retail licenses is aimed at giving regulators time to analyze and figure out a way around what he called “the unnatural distribution of licenses,” which has left two-thirds of the state’s cities and towns without dispensaries. It’s unclear how long the pause will last.

In many ways, officials said, the cannabis industry, with the active encouragement of regulators and legislators, is trying to emulate the state’s successful craft beer industry, by keeping things relatively small and locally sourced — or, put another way, Vermont-centric.

Some of Vermont’s most popular craft brewers, such as The Alchemist in Stowe, have consciously limited their output and turned down lucrative buyout offers from conglomerates, saying they want to retain local control and quality standards.

Pepper, who a decade ago as an aide to then-Governor Pete Shumlin was asked to draw up the state’s first plan for a legal cannabis industry, said Vermont has focused on keeping the growth, testing, and sale of cannabis in Vermonters’ hands, rather than allow deep-pocket, out-of-state interests to move in.

“We’re not trying to be protectionists,” Pepper said, “but as we’ve seen in other states, too much and too big doesn’t work well.”

State regulators initially envisioned six different tiers of cultivation areas, ranging from 1,000 to 25,000 square feet, but they have not implemented the largest tier and have been more inclined to license smaller, mom-and-pop growers. State records show that of the 383 licensed cultivators, only 13 use areas larger than 5,000 square feet, and 289 of them are in the 1,000-square-foot tier.

Geoffrey Pizzutillo, executive director of the Vermont Growers Association, which represents licensed growers in the state, said his group mostly agrees with regulators’ determination to keep cultivation areas on the lower end of the scale.

“We think nothing larger than 5,000 square feet is needed in Vermont,” he said. “When it comes to pot, I have not seen exquisite cannabis grown beyond 5,000 square feet.”

Beyond maintaining quality, smaller cultivation areas fit with Vermont’s demographics and allow for more growers to get into the industry, Pizzutillo said.

As for geographic saturation, he believes the state got things backward from the get-go, by legalizing sales but then leaving it to individual cities and towns to opt-in. He said once the Legislature voted to legalize retail sales, it should have made it legal in all communities and put the onus on those communities to opt-out.

Pepper, the chief state regulator, said some cities and towns are already oversaturated. For example, there are 13 retail stores in Burlington, the state’s largest city with 45,000 people.

“Burlington can’t sustain 14 or 15 brick-and-mortar stores,” Pepper said.

Just days after Pepper said that, Grass Queen in Burlington announced it was closing. In a statement, owner Jahala Dudley cited too much competition and said the $10,000 annual license fee “ensures that Grass Queen cannot be financially viable.”

Statewide, only three stores have closed since sales began two years ago, but regulators believe there could be many more closings if they don’t temporarily restrict licenses and figure out a way to spread them out across a wider swathe of the state. Regulators stress the importance of a stable market — for retailers, growers, and customers.

The Cannabis Control Board’s reset is fine with Miriam Wood, who owns The Tea House, one of three pot shops within a one-mile stretch in White River Junction, a village of the Upper Valley town of Hartford, which borders New Hampshire. She said business is stable now, but just one more retail store in the area could jeopardize the existing ones.

“Not just for me, but for the whole industry to succeed, there has to be some kind of balance,” she said. “We’re two years in. It’s a good time to take a pause, see what’s going well, what’s not going well, reevaluate, adjust, and keep this market successful.”

Legislators this year passed a bill they hope will allow regulators to adjust regulatory rules to better reflect the market and better spread the number of retail shops across the state.

Michael McCarthy, a state representative from St. Albans who sponsored the bill, said the way the industry has taken root and grown offers a blueprint for revising the powers of the Cannabis Control Board to better reflect the state’s goal of keeping the industry scaled to the size of a small state like Vermont.

“We’ve tried to keep this as a craft market,” McCarthy said. “We don’t get into big corporate ownership, like other states, with advertising out of control. Having a small market suits us. Keeping dollars circulating locally.”