When Carlo Manabat attended cannabis industry events, he was often one of the only people of color in the room. He also noticed that there were very few women. Then, through the Maryland Dispensary Association (MDDA), the Philippines native met Venushki Hemachandra, the Sri Lankan co-founder of Burtonsville dispensary Herbiculture, and Tracey Lancaster Miller, a Parkville native and co-founder of the Rockville-based dispensary Peake ReLeaf.

As minority owners in a predominately white, male industry, the three “shared a lot of lived experiences,” says Manabat, who provides software and analytics to cannabis retailers with his tech venture, Kuya. Together, in 2021, they established Project DREAM, a group within the MDDA working to bring equity and inclusion to the state’s growing cannabis industry.

“Initially, it was just about creating safe spaces among ourselves,” says Manabat of the group’s founding. But Project DREAM has evolved with the industry, which grew from medical to recreational use last summer, with last fall’s business-license lottery open exclusively to social equity applicants from communities disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.

“We went from a focus on education and outreach to trying to impact workforce development and the communities we do business in through expungement clinics,” says Manabat, with those clinics helping Marylanders clear marijuana convictions from their legal records.

Project DREAM has also launched a dispensary-owner mentorship program through the MDDA, part of a broader effort to not only make the industry more inclusive but provide the necessary network of support for these businesses to be successful.

“It’s not enough to just give these licenses,” says Peake ReLeaf’s Miller, who’s also the MDDA president. Aspiring dispensary owners face more obstacles than the typical business owners, from advertising to financing restrictions, stemming from the substance remaining illegal on the federal level.

Through its mentorship program, which pairs prospective license holders with current ones, Project DREAM and the MDDA hope to provide even more support to would-be entrepreneurs by connecting them with experienced industry professionals who have faced the same challenges. It also offers classes on funding, marketing, and operations.

The first two sessions had 22 graduates, 14 of whom applied for the state’s social equity lottery. All were accepted, and three ultimately received licenses.

“It’s more than just providing that first opportunity,” says Manabat. “We’ve learned that supporting them all the way to operations is what’s needed to have the impact that all of us want.”

One fine morning last summer, as I walked out onto the second-story back deck of my rowhouse, I basked in the sun gloriously hitting the leaves of my new cannabis plants. I burned a spliff, began trimming some leaves, and saw a neighbor working below in her garden, too. I noticed the birds chirping, as they do that time of day, and heard the horses from the nearby arabbers’ stable clomping through the alley.

Then I heard another familiar sound, that of Foxtrot, the Baltimore Police Department’s helicopter, warbling overhead, and for a moment my mind went back to the old days and the fear of jailtime over the cultivation of a plant.

Getting to this point was something of a personal journey—an awakening even. This story is about how I got there.

The first time I saw cannabis plants growing, they were underground. Not just in a metaphorical sense, but literally, in a secret room dug beneath the floor of a friend’s closet. Today, everything is different. Not only did Foxtrot evince no interest in my horticultural activities, the police union has argued that cops shouldn’t be randomly drug-tested for the same weed over which they once destroyed people’s lives.

In criminal terms, if you grew cannabis, it was called “manufacturing marijuana”—a felony with a potential 20-year sentence. But the phrase contained a fundamental flaw in law enforcement thinking. You don’t manufacture weed. It’s a plant. You tend it.

In the rush of legalization, for both the Big Weed big shots and the typical consumer buying dispensary gummies, manufacturing is perhaps the right word to sum up our new era of legal cannabis, however.

Massive grow operations and industrial processing facilities convert raw cannabis flower into highly specialized products that would have boggled the minds of my grower friends in the 1990s. Multistate operators dominate most markets to the point it can be difficult to know who owns a given dispensary or produces a given product. Weed has gone corporate.

Don’t get me wrong. I got a medical card as soon as I could, switching from my “man” to the legal stuff for the variety, legitimacy, and safety of the dispensary. I loved that the terpenes—the chemical compounds that give the plant (and all plants) their odors, flavors, and medicinal effects—were listed alongside THC levels on labels. Knowing exactly how much THC is in your edible is a huge improvement over the pot brownies of yore. I also loved the access to safe vapes. (I would’ve quit cigarettes years earlier if they’d been available.)

For a long time, I loved this manufactured cannabis, and I’m not the only one. Between July 1, when the law that allows adults to buy cannabis for recreational purposes went into effect, and the end of 2023, dispensaries in Maryland sold 56,510,028 grams of cannabis flower—that’s 56,510 kilos or 124,583 pounds. And that doesn’t even count edibles (nearly 3 million sold), concentrates, vapes, hash or any of the other forms of THC that Marylanders can legally purchase.

Overall, it equated to nearly $800 million in revenue in just six months for a start-up industry already employing more than 5,000 people in the state’s 96 legal dispensaries, 18 legal grow rooms, and 23 legal processing facilities.

But, as we approach the first anniversary of adult-use legalization, problems with corporate cannabis are also becoming more apparent. There is, for example, still just one fully Black-owned dispensary in the state, Mary & Main, in Prince George’s County. In Baltimore City, there are no dispensaries west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The initial effort to create a more equitable distribution of licenses—in part to address the disproportionate damage of the drug war—was stalled when Curio Wellness, one of the area’s biggest cannabis companies, sued because it believed the new licenses would hurt its market share.

The Curio lawsuit brought to light that David Smith, the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group executive chairman who recently bought The Baltimore Sun, was one of the company’s major investors. A cash-ready investment ability gives a significant advantage to the well-heeled, thanks to the continuing federal cannabis prohibition, which makes banks leery of writing loans to cannabis businesses. The prohibition seems almost designed to give the industry away, state-by-state, to the rich.

But that’s not the only deleterious effect federal prohibition has on the industry. Because debit and credit cards can’t be accepted—the banking issue, again—it’s an entirely cash operation, making it extremely dangerous for businesses. As a result, the state lists 32 “ancillary” cannabis businesses, most of which are security companies, often run, ironically, by ex-police officers.

Then, there is just so much marketing. The New York Times recently profiled the cannabis “lifestyle” products brand, Cookies, which has a franchise in South Baltimore. It would seem that one of the keys to success in the industry is branding, something that has become increasingly evident. What had once been a fun trip to the dispensary now feels like a sensory bombardment akin to walking down the cereal aisle in a neon grocery store. Another bummer: first having to place your order online. Like Amazon.

Eventually, I realized I wanted to make my weed analog again.

IN CRIMINAL TERMS, IF YOU GREW CANNABIS, IT WAS CALLED “MANUFACTURING MARIJUANA.” BUT YOU DON’T MANUFACTURE WEED. IT’S A PLANT. YOU TEND IT.

I trusted my former underground source, who we’ll call Kurt V., more than the cannabis companies. Kurt, who is white, worked in the black market for years, developing a network of small-time, organic, and minority growers. He has since crossed over into the legal industry in various capacities, but he has a lot of thoughts on corporate cannabis, which he describes as a toxic mixture of mass consolidation, where “big fish get bigger,” and “the wildest West,” where each state repeats the mistakes that have been made elsewhere.

“It’s mind-boggling to me how much money is in the industry and how much of it is fly by the seat of your pants,” he says.

A big divide is cultural. “The ethos or the philosophy of the cannabis CEO is not the same [as a local grower],” Kurt says. “I’m gonna sound like a dirty hippie here for a minute but…there’s a relationship to the plant that these new people don’t have. I’m talking about the ‘lovey-dovey’ kind of like. This is plant medicine. You know, this is sacred.”

As he spoke, I felt guilty about abandoning him for the corporate stuff. But he was articulating exactly why I had returned and why I was interested in starting to grow myself.

Ras. Langford “Crucial” Johnson, a Black Rastafarian who has been growing cannabis in Baltimore since the 1990s and worked in some of the first medical dispensaries in the city, recently applied for micro-grow and dispensary licenses. He has a more positive view of the above-ground industry.

Unlike the first, exorbitant state licenses, Crucial says his team paid a $1,000 fee for the micro-grow license and $5,000 for the regular license through the Maryland Cannabis Administration and its newly formed Office of Social Equity.

Such licensees must show that they are part of a community disproportionately impacted by the drug war. If the application passes, it still goes through a lottery. But he is confident in his application and his team.

Crucial also carries a relationship with the plant that goes deeper than simply developing a profit oriented operation.

“My whole goal is to bring the culture forward,” he says. “I grew up on a farm in southern Maryland. So farming is part of my culture, my background. That’s who I am as a person.”

Since I’d already returned to my underground network for my flower, I decided it was time to get some rooted clippings from a mature plant and grow a couple of plants in pots on my back patio—not unlike buying tomato plants at the greenhouse.

Under Maryland’s adult use cannabis law, adults over 21 can grow two plants and medical patients can grow four plants. I still have my medical card. I was looking for four clippings.

One day, Kurt and I drove up to the house of his friend whose indoor grow-room had supplied a fair amount of the weed that I’d bought from Kurt over the years. It resembled the X-Files set-up I’d seen in the underground lair years earlier. Lights, fans, reflective material.

The guy I’ll call the Farmer had eight or so clippings and told me and Kurt to each take two. One was Cindy 99, a sativa, and the other an indica hybrid strain called White Widow. That’s one thing about legalization, the genetics have exploded. The number of strains is mind-boggling.

Sativas, which come from Central Asia, tend to grow tall and skinny. Indicas, from the Middle East, short and bushy. I was happy to have one of each to compare. The Farmer asked if I was going to do indoor. I shook my head no.

For some people, indoor is a good option. Crucial noted the cost of indoor growing equipment has fallen dramatically. He recently set up a grow-room with LED lights, a tent, fans, and the pots for $350. Previously, with even cheap LEDs, the lighting alone would have cost that much.

“If you don’t have children, it’s a good practice because they’re just like kids,” Crucial says of indoor plants. “They want what they want when they want it, and you can’t always go away. You have to have a babysitter.”

But “if you do outdoors,” he says, “you can do whatever.”

“You can do whatever” was more of my stoner speed. It’s best to be able to grow outdoor plants in the earth itself because the roots will have more room to spread out and the plants can get bigger, but my backyard is very shady and wouldn’t allow for enough light. However, I do have a small, south-facing back deck that gets great light and isn’t visible from any public passageway—one of the legal requirements.

I’d been growing tomatoes, peppers, blueberries, and other flowers and vegetables in pots for years, so I mixed organic potting soil with horse-manure compost from the arabber stable and put it in 10-gallon clay pots and planted the two six-inch clippings.

Later, I got some more clipping “clones”—a Cindy 99 and Peanut Butter Breath. The Farmer gave me the plants for free and just asked to taste my produce when it was done. On the black market, I paid Kurt $20 each for clippings. For those, instead of buying big new clay pots, which had been expensive, I used pots I already had. I spent about $150 on my operation.

Now, if you don’t know anyone in the legacy market, you can buy seeds at various dispensaries like Liberty, which used to be Maggie’s in Hampden, and clippings at The Living Room in Pikesville, among other places, for about $40.

“I’M TALKING ABOUT THE ‘LOVEY-DOVEY’ KIND OF LIKE. THIS IS PLANT MEDICINE. YOU KNOW, THIS IS SACRED.”

At first, I shied away from specialized fertilizer, letting the plants be their plant selves, as I did with my tomatoes. But the going was slow, and they remained runty. Talking to various growers and reading online forums, I realized in late July that my plants were less well-developed than they should be, so I began using fertilizers intended for cannabis.

In between, I spent a lot of time trimming fan leaves—the famous five-pronged ones—which suck energy and light from the more crucial flowers. I bought red clips that I could loop branches through, guiding them outward and allowing more air to reach the buds, which prevents mold or other fungal infections. Once, I thought I had developed a milky white infestation, but it was, as the Farmer informed me, my first evidence of the “glorious trichomes,” which are the crystalline source of THC.

As my flowers formed, I bought a jeweler’s loupe for $20 to study the crystals on the small leaves surrounding the buds. I needed to harvest when they turned from a clear color to milky white and just before they turned brown. It was fascinating to watch and learn the language of the plant.

Ultimately, none of my plants grew much past my shoulders and none got bushier than a hefty tomato plant. Friends, including a local bar owner, had plants in the ground that towered far above their heads, but I was happy with my bushes.

I harvested my original Cindy 99 first. I cut it off at the root and took the entire plant into my downstairs half-bath, where I’d set up fans and a hygrometer to manage the humidity and temperature (six hygrometers cost me $12.68). I placed a shower rod from wall to wall and I tied the whole plant, upside down, to the rod. Hanging it upside down as it dries helps the sap and resins flow into the flowers, which are what you mainly want to keep—though the small leaves with trichrome crystals are also great for making tinctures.

I let the plant hang for a week, checking its moisture levels daily. I also cut the White Widow and hung it. When the stems of the Cindy broke easily—a sign they’d dried out—I untied it and trimmed the plant. I bought a pair of sharp, spring-loaded scissors and a plastic sheet to cover the table, and first cut all the major branches.

From there, it got more granular, until I was trimming the small leaves away from each of the buds. This takes hours and can get real sticky he indoor ones I normally buy, but there was a lovely freshness to them. I sampled the flower, but it was like moonshine or Beaujolais wine: It needed to be aged and cured to stabilize the terpenes and pull the moisture out of its center.

After I’d trimmed them, I put the flowers in jars with hygrometers and put them in a dark cabinet. I checked the humidity and “burped” the jars (opening them to let gas out) a few times a day, then tapering to once every couple of days until they had been cured.

Ultimately, my plants produced about five ounces of weed. If you don’t know measurements, that’s a fair amount—certainly a felony back in the day. For scale, a nice, big joint might weigh a gram. There are 28 grams in an ounce, so enough to roll about 140 fatties.

From the beginning, I intended to share as much of the weed as I could. I’d wanted to grow it in the sun, for love, in the hopes of making it special in the same way a tomato grown at home is special.

Given the timing, Thanksgiving weekend seemed like the perfect occasion to share and celebrate the harvest. I walked around that week with my pockets stuffed with pot and gave away a little more than an ounce in small gift-sizes. It always made people smile when I handed them their present.

Those who reported back were impressed, too. One guy wanted to buy a pound to get a recording artist he had in the studio out of a rut. I laughed to myself. I liked imagining my weed could get his rapper out of a rut.

It had gotten me through an otherwise difficult summer that included the death of my mother. I had learned a lot. I knew I would do better, but likely make different mistakes next year.

Though I’d been smoking for 35 years, I feel like growing the plant taught me far more than anything else I’d read or been told.

I was learning to care for a plant that had long cared for me.

Baynard Woods is a Baltimore journalist and author of three books, including the co-written I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad.

This piece appeared in our April 2024 issue. For more great Baltimore stories, consider becoming a subscriber.

Two women lean over a wood-and-glass display case, pointing to the brightly colored packages arranged inside. Next to a sign that reads “edibles,” they browse the cannabis-infused chocolate chip bites, blueberry-flavored gummies, and a bar of 70-percent dark chocolate also made with THC—aka tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive component of cannabis—while nearby walls are lined with copies of The Cannabis Dictionary and the physician-authored Cannabis Is Medicine.

All new Summit Wellness staffers receive these books as part of their onboarding process, says owner Kalpesh Shah, 42, who frequently chats with customers at the check-in desk of his Catonsville dispensary. He knows that these spaces can be intimidating, so his goal is to make the shop as informative and accessible as possible.

“I want it to have that mom-and-pop feel,” he says. “You should be able to have a conversation and get the answers you need, versus feeling like you’re just doing a transaction.”

It’s a Friday afternoon in late July, just weeks since the legalization of recreational cannabis in Maryland. Already, Summit’s customer base is made up of roughly 60-percent recreational clients, compared to 40-percent medical patients, and excitement still lingers from the first day of sales, when the state’s 100 dispensaries took in more than $3.5 million.

“I had people who had been incarcerated for cannabis possession come in, and the fact that they were able to legally purchase something that they had been locked up for was a revolutionary moment,” says Shah. “All day, I kept hearing people say, ‘I would have never thought in my life I would see this day come.’”

It’s a pinch-me moment for him, too. After immigrating to the U.S. from India at age 10, he’s become a serial entrepreneur, owning and operating everything from a Subway franchise to packaged-good and liquor stores in his adopted hometown of Catonsville.

When the medical cannabis industry got off the ground in 2017, Shah saw an opportunity, but what began as a business decision soon grew into something more.

“I became a patient in the first year of the program, and I started to read lots of books, meet growers, processors, and other operators, and really learn about the benefits of cannabis,” says Shah, who uses cannabis to address back and leg pain, and notes it’s also used for anxiety, sleeplessness, or to reduce dependency on prescription medicine. “When I saw how it affected customers so positively, the passion to continue to grow in this industry, to continue to educate and help patients, was something that I made my mission.”

Taking what he’d learned from owning liquor stores, Shah studied the market and product, and bought several medical dispensaries. With the legalization of recreational cannabis imminent, he bought his current business from Ethos—a dispensary operator with locations in four states, including Maryland—and rebranded it as Summit Wellness. And a bonus? It’s two minutes from the home he shares with his wife, kids, and parents.

“I’m a local guy, I grew up here,” says Shah, a graduate of the nearby Milford Mill High School and University of Maryland, Baltimore County. As such, he strives to bring a sense of community into the customer experience at Summit.

This spring, a second Summit Wellness location will open in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey—another emerging market. At home, Shah is also offering a hand up to other people of color hoping to break into the industry. He mentors two aspiring dispensary owners through Project Dream, a Maryland Dispensary Association program aiming to bring more equity into the local cannabis economy.

“That’s something I would like to see change,” he says. “I’d like to see more brown and Black people involved in owning, managing, and operating these businesses.”

More than a third of U.S. states have legalized adult-use cannabis, and the Maryland cannabis industry is watching closely for a road map of what to do—and what to do differently—when adult (also known as recreational) cannabis use for people over the age of 21 arrives in the Old Line State. Medical cannabis was legalized in the state in 2014.

In addition to learning from its neighbors—Virginia legalized adult use in 2021 and is in the midst of the regulatory process, while the District of Columbia legalized recreational cannabis for adults over 21 in 2014 but lacks a regulated retail market due to its lack of statehood—Maryland can draw on its own experience during the legalization and regulatory process for medical cannabis.

While legislation forming the Medical Cannabis Commission, tasked with ironing out regulations and awarding licenses, passed in 2014, the first medical dispensaries in the state didn’t open their doors until late 2017. After Maryland’s medical cannabis industry launched to criticism about the lack of diversity among the business owners awarded a limited number of initial licenses, Governor Larry Hogan ordered a diversity study that resulted in making 20 additional licenses available with consideration of racial and ethnic diversity during application approvals.

The Maryland Minority Cannabis Business Association (MMCBA), established in 2021 by veteran lobbyists Michael Arrington, a Democrat and former state delegate, and John Kane, an entrepreneur and former Maryland Republican Party chairman, sees the eventual adult-use cannabis regulatory process as an opportunity for the state to correct disparities in the initial medical cannabis license rollout. Through the association, they hope to advocate for policies that level the playing field.

“I look at it as being a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring some parity to help fund health care needs and help cities—Baltimore City in particular—where they’ve just been devastated by the so-called ‘War on Drugs,’” Kane says of the equitable distribution of adult-use cannabis licenses. “And if they can reverse some of that, then I think that’s a good thing.”

With a mission to ensure minority business owners interested in entering the cannabis industry have professional representation and advocacy for creating and enforcing sensible and equitable legislative policies, Kane and Arrington studied challenges minority-owned cannabis businesses faced in states where adult use was already legal.

“We asked, ‘What are the three things that are limiting the ability of minorities to be successful?’ Because in all 16 states with an adult use industry at the time, the majority of minority-owned cannabis firms failed,” Kane explains. Through their research, the MMCBA found a lack of advocacy, lack of education about the cannabis business industry, and lack of capital to be the main barriers to success.

When adult-use cannabis comes to Maryland, the MMCBA plans to address these three areas through professional development programming for members and providing connections to potential investors. With the membership funds, Kane and Arrington will lobby for more equitable policies.

“Our targeted member is a husband and wife who own a couple of tire stores and want to get into cannabis, maybe they want to get into retail or into the grow side,” Kane explains. “Members would get to participate in bootcamps—two-to-three-day events bringing in experts on subjects like submitting responses to RFPs for licensing, how to set up the organization from a tax structure, legal and real estate considerations—all the things where, if you get one wrong, it can kill you.”

With access to comprehensive resources and funding, Kane hopes that minority owners granted licenses for the adult use program have the tools they need to succeed.

Members of the local cannabis industry praise the medical program the state has built for its focus on patient education and relatively low barriers to access.

“Maryland has at its core a really great medical program,” says Wendy Bronfein, co-founder, chief brand officer, and director of public policy at Curio Wellness. “It was created with respect for the patient-provider relationship and without a lot of hoop-jumping for participation for patients and providers to get access to this therapeutic product.”

Maryland’s largest medical cannabis brand, Curio Wellness, opened a $7-million, 34,000-square-foot, product-research, development, and manufacturing facility in Cockeysville last year and employs 250 people across its growing, processing, and retail businesses.

Bronfein says that how state regulators balance an eventual adult-use cannabis program while strengthening and sustaining the existing medical cannabis program is critical to the success of both industries.

“We know a lot more today than we did in 2014,” Bronfein says.

“Policy makers need to look at strengthening and improving medical while developing what adult use looks like. If we’ve had five years of a strong medical program and people say they want adult use, let’s not let our fears of a stigmatized product create unnecessary barriers,” she continues. “It’s really common in this industry to have a lot of unnecessary rules that make people feel better about the legalization of something that has been stigmatized for so long and was illegal. It doesn’t make for safer product—it just increases cost.”

In a market with both medical and adult use programs, Bronfein explains, medical cannabis would be differentiated from adult use by remaining untaxed and offering a deeper breadth of products in terms of potency, specialized dosing, and specialized product development. Curio already has two proprietary products, one focusing on sleep and the other on gastrointestinal issues. While each market is unique due to state-specific regulations, Curio will get insight into how its therapeutic products perform in an adult use market through its new dispensary franchise Far & Dotter, which will open its first two out-of-state franchises in Mississippi and New Jersey, the latter of which has a brand-new adult use industry.

“Some of the knowledge we learn in these markets will be transferrable, but some will not because regulations vary by state,” Bronfein says. “But anything that has to do with how you engage with people and what the customer experience feels like is most likely transferrable.”

Additionally, the franchise owners will receive support from the $30-million Curio Wellness Investment Fund, which provides women, minorities, and disabled veterans access to startup capital and operational infrastructure with a three-year path to 100-percent ownership.

The idea to franchise first came up in 2018, just a year into the state’s medical cannabis program, Bronfein says. Curio’s team got to know the pain points for local dispensary owners while selling their wholesale products to 91 of the 93 dispensaries in the state. “As an operator, we saw it’s not as simple to run a dispensary as thinking, ‘I could own and run a retail store,’” she says. “It not only requires a great retailer, but also requires you are highly compliant to a series of regulations that don’t make it easy to do business, plus you have to be a world-class marketer to make your location what a customer is going to choose,” Bronfein explains.

The Curio Wellness Investment Fund is Curio’s response to conversations in the industry around the need for more diverse ownership. Together, Bronfein and the Curio team hope the franchise model and access to capital will provide needed resources to others looking to succeed in medical cannabis.

“It is more important to us to promulgate a brand and customer experience in this industry than to outright own the dispensary and the license,” Bronfein says. “To turn what we’re doing into a toolkit à la a franchise, or business-in-a-box, allows prospective entrepreneurs to step up, follow a playbook, receive a brand and operating toolkit, and become that owner in the dispensary every day leading a team and engaging customers as the face of the brand in the community.”

The potential for growth in both medical and adult-use cannabis programs will have a huge economic impact on the state through tax revenue and job creation.

“Many people get focused on the idea of the opportunity being rooted in the license that one person wins and reaps wealth off of, and obviously that’s a piece of the puzzle, but there are so many jobs and opportunities created through these career paths that can’t be ignored,” Bronfein says. “The medical program has been a massive catalyst for job creation and career development, and adding another layer with adult use creates a really strong economic agent for everyone in Maryland.”

Laura Barrett-Nutting, a registered nurse for more than 25 years who formerly worked for Johns Hopkins Medicine implementing an integrated, electronic medical record-keeping system, is just one example of someone whose career path has pivoted thanks to the state’s medical cannabis program.

“I wasn’t a cannabis user or cannabis advocate at all prior to 2016,” explains Barrett-Nutting, known professionally as “Nurse Laura.” Today, she is president and founder of the National Clinical Directors Consortium, which brings together cannabis clinical directors across the nation, as well as a consultant providing cannabis education and services to individual patients, dispensaries, and health care providers.

She found her way into the space when a friend asked her to serve as the medical advisor to a grow facility he was opening in Howard County. After some time and a lot of research, Barrett-Nutting agreed. Before starting her own business, Barrett-Nutting had experience in all sides of the local cannabis market, from growing and processing to distribution and retail. When consolidation in the medical cannabis industry resulted in Barrett-Nutting leaving the business, she put her skills to use where she saw a need in the market.

Maryland requires every dispensary to have a registered clinical director—a position that can be filled by a nurse, pharmacist, or doctor—available to provide training and education for dispensary staff. Barrett-Nutting established the National Clinical Directors Consortium in 2021 as a resource for clinical directors in Maryland to create reliable standards for patient care, improve dispensary staff education, and continue to advocate to reduce the stigma of cannabis. The group quickly expanded to support practitioners in this role beyond the state.

She points to the leveling out of the medical cannabis market and a surplus of product in Maryland as a challenge as adult-use programs loom over the industry.

Because cannabis use is illegal at the federal level, every product sold in the state must also be grown and processed locally. “In the beginning, we had no plant—we had nothing to sell. It was very hard to get the industry off the ground,” Barrett-Nutting says. “Now we’re in the opposite boat. Now the growers have a surplus. There’s more flower than we have patients to sell it to.

“Prices are coming down a little, but not a lot, because the cost of growing and processing is still high,” she continues. “When we started, we had all these projections going up and up, and now it’s kind of leveling off. You’re not having as many patients sign up.”

As of mid-October, Maryland was just shy of 160,000 registered medical cannabis patients, according to data from the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission (MMCC)—the state’s largest number to date. But as the market matures, it’s seeing a slower rate of growth over the last six months than the same period in prior years.

Launching an adult use program would reduce some barriers to cannabis use that currently exist with the medical program, including the red tape associated with registering as a patient and regulations preventing medical cannabis patients from buying or possessing a firearm.

However, Barrett-Nutting and some of her peers see challenges in the huge consumer education need that comes along with launching an adult use program.

“A concern is that any requirement for having some type of health care professional support at dispensaries might go away, and that patients, even people who are just shopping in adult use dispensaries, will accidentally get side effects from the things they purchase that are unintended,” she says.

If people aren’t properly educated about dosage, potential interactions with other drugs, and what to expect, she explains, they could get too high and have negative experiences.

In the fall, the MMCC conducted a patient survey to help prepare for public health measures in anticipation of adult use legalization. According to the MMCC, the survey is part of a broader research effort to inform future public health initiatives around cannabis use in the state. The survey assesses data on a variety of topics including product preferences and patterns of use, product efficacy and health outcomes, access and barriers to medical cannabis acquisition and consumption, and additional health and safety measures related to cannabis use and storage.

“The valuable information collected through the patient survey and these additional studies will be indispensable for planning future program and policy efforts to protect and safeguard consumers and the public,” said the MMCC chair Tiffany Randolph in a press release.

With good policies, there’s potential for thriving adult-use and medicinal cannabis programs to coexist, meeting the needs of different types of users.

Benefits to continuing as a medical patient in an adult use market include no or lower tax on the product to shorter lines. Additionally, Barrett-Nutting expects that medical dispensaries would offer a broader range of products.

“If they’re looking for some of the other more minor cannabinoids, the less intoxicating products, those will hopefully still be available in the medical market, whereas the adult use market will more likely have some of the fun and the higher-THC type of products,” she says, noting that the MMCC recently reduced the cost of the administrative fee and extended the card length for medical patients to further reduce barriers to entry. Plus, says Barrett-Nutting, medicinal users would have access to a health care professional for guidance. “For those reasons, it’ll make sense to stay a medical patient.”

RETAIL RESOURCES

Maryland is home to nearly 100 licensed medical cannabis dispensaries helping patients find the best therapeutic product for their needs. (List sourced from the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission.)

ALLEGANY COUNTY
Allegany Med Marijuana Dispensary
100 Beall St.
Cumberland, MD 21502

Grow West Cannabis Company
1096 W. Industrial Blvd.
Cumberland, MD 21502

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY
Gold Leaf
2029 West St.
Annapolis, MD 21401

Green Point Wellness
823-A Elkridge Landing Rd.
Linthicum, MD 21090

Greenlight Therapeutics
782 State Route 3 North, Suite A
Gambrillis, MD 21054

Mana Supply Company
3005 Solomons Island Rd.
Edgewater, MD 21037

Maryland Physician Partners
7609 Energy Parkway, Suite 901
Curtis Bay, MD 21225

Nature’s Medicines
1657 Crofton Blvd.
Crofton, MD 21114

Oceanside Cannabis
16 Magothy Rd.
Pasadena, MD 21122

BALTIMORE CITY

Blair Wellness Center
5806 York Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21212

Charm City Medicus, LLC
717 North Point Blvd.
Baltimore, MD 21224

Culta, LLC
215 Key Highway
Baltimore, MD 21230

Dr. Dots Dispensary
805 N. Howard St.
Baltimore, MD 21201

GreenLabs
1522 Eastern Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21231

Health for Life Baltimore
6807 Rolling Mill Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21224

Maggie’s
3317 Keswick Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21211

Pure Life Wellness
35 E. Cross St., Federal Hill
Baltimore, MD 21230

ReLeaf Shop
1114 Cathedral St., Suite 5
Baltimore, MD 21201

Star Buds
5975 Belair Road
Baltimore, MD 21206

Storehouse
5730 Falls Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21209

BALTIMORE COUNTY
Americana Dispensary
3531 Washington Blvd.,
Suite 112
Baltimore, MD 21227

Blue Ridge Wellness
9413 Harford Rd.
Parkville, MD 21234

The Botanist
7175 Security Blvd., Suite 102
Windsor Mill, MD 21244

Chesacanna
10534 York Rd.
Cockeysville, MD 21030

Chesapeake Health Sciences, LLC
102 Carroll Island Rd.
Baltimore, MD 21220

Curaleaf
11722 Reisterstown Rd.
Reisterstown, MD 21136

Curio Wellness
2060-A York Rd.
Timonium, MD 21093

Ethos Cannabis
6328 Baltimore National Pike
Baltimore, MD 21228

Health for Life White Marsh
4741 Ridge Rd.
Nottingham, MD 21236

Kip
9 Cranbrook Rd.
Cockeysville, MD 21030

The Living Room Company, LLC
1636 Reisterstown Rd.
Pikesville, MD 21208

Mana Middle River
100 Carroll Island Rd.
Middle River, MD 21220

Mission Catonsville
6328 Baltimore National Pike
Catonsville, MD 21228

Nirvana Center
5225 Baltimore National Pike
Baltimore, MD 21229

Oceans Dispensary
100 Carroll Island Rd.
Middle River, MD 21220

Temescal Wellness of MD LLC
1636 Reisterstown Rd.
Pikesville, MD 21208

Your Farmacy
1526 York Rd.
Lutherville, MD 21093

ZenLeaf
101 E. Chesapeake Ave.,
Suite 102
Towson, MD 21286

CALVERT COUNTY
Greenwave Maryland
10 Creston Ln., Ste 2
Solomons, MD 20688

CARROLL COUNTY
The Dispensary
330140 Village Rd.
Westminster, MD 21157

Herbology
700-K Corporate Center Ct.
Westminster, MD 21157

Verilife
700 Corporate Center Ct., Suite K
Westminster, MD 21157

CECIL COUNTY
Nature’s Care & Wellness
4925 Pulaski Hwy., Suite A
Perryville, MD 21903

PharmKent
330 East Pulaski Hwy., Suite B
Elkton, MD 21921

CHARLES COUNTY
Chesapeake Apothecary
4781 Crain Hwy., Suite A
White Plains, MD 20695

Dispensary Works
10766 DeMarr Rd., Suite 3A
White Plains, MD 20695

Zen Leaf Waldorf
2290 Old Washington Rd.,
Ste 12383
Waldorf, MD 20601

DORCHESTER COUNTY
Sunburst Pharm
603 Meteor Dr.
Cambridge, MD 21613

FREDERICK COUNTY
Euphoria Wellness
11717 Old National Pike
New Market, MD 21774

gLeaf Medical Cannabis
4606 Wedgewood Blvd.
Frederick, MD 21703

Green Goods
1080 West Patrick St.
Frederick, MD 21703

Kannavis
8709 Fingerboard Rd.
Frederick, MD 21702

Sweetbuds Dispensary
5312 New Design Rd.
Frederick, MD 21703

Wellness Institute of Maryland
4606 Wedgewood Blvd.
Frederick, MD 21703

HARFORD COUNTY
Four Green Fields, LLC
3518 Conowingo Rd.
Street, MD 21154

Rev Canna
3111 Emmorton Rd.
Abingdon, MD 21009

Rise-Joppa
702 Pulaski Hwy.
Joppa, MD 21085

True Wellness Aberdeen
226 S. Philadelphia Ave.
Aberdeen, MD 21061

HOWARD COUNTY
Green Point Wellness
116 Washington Blvd. South
Laurel, MD 20707

Greenhouse Wellness
4801 Dorsey Hall Dr., Suite 110
Ellicott City, MD 21042

Nature’s Medicines
10169 Baltimore National Pike
Ellicott City, MD 21042

Remedy
6656-E Dobbin Rd.
Columbia, MD 21045

Revolution ReLeaf
9994 Washington Blvd. North
Laurel, MD 20723

Trilogy
9291 Baltimore National Pike
Ellicott City, MD 21042

Zen Leaf
7221 Montevideo Rd., Suite 150
Jessup, MD 20794

MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Bloom Medicinals
11530 Middlebrook Rd.
Germantown, MD 20876

Columbia Care
4609 Willow Lane
Chevy Chase, MD 20815

Curaleaf Gaithersburg
10011 Stedwick Rd.
Gaithersburg, MD 20886

Elevate Takoma
6309A New Hampshire Ave.
Takoma Park, MD 20912

Ethos Cannabis
4007 Norbeck Rd., Unit A
Rockville, MD 20853

Grassroots
106 N. Frederick Ave.
Gaithersburg, MD 20877

gLeaf Medical Cannabis
808 Hungerford Dr.
Rockville, MD 20850

Harvest
12200-B Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852

Health For Life Bethesda
4909 Fairmont Ave.
Bethesda, MD 20814

Herbafi
8413 Ramsey Ave.
Silver Spring, MD 20910

Herbiculture
4009 Sandy Springs Rd.,
Unit 101
Burtonsville, MD 20866

Liberty
12001 Nebel St.
Rockville, MD 20852

MI Health
8355 Snouffer School Rd.
Gaithersburg, MD 20879

Peake ReLeaf
2001 Chapman Ave.
Rockville, MD 20852

Potomac Holistics
14808 Physicians Ln., Suite 212
Rockville, MD 20850

Rise Bethesda
10401 Old Georgetown Rd.,
Suite 210
Bethesda, MD 20814

Rise Silver Spring
7900 Fenton St.
Silver Spring, MD 20910

Sweetspot
18070 Georgia Ave.
Olney, MD 20832

Verilife
5544 Nicholson Ln.
Rockville, MD 20852

Zenity Wellness
811 Russell Ave., Suite C
Gaithersburg, MD 20878

Zen Leaf Germantown
13007 Wisteria Dr.
Germantown, MD 20874

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY
Altpharm
4710 Auth Place, Suite 595
Suitland, MD 20746

Haven
7501 Clymer Dr.
Brandywine, MD 20619

JOVA Wellness Center
5846 Allentown Way
Camp Springs, MD 20748

Mary and Main
8801 Hampton Mall Drive N.
Capital Heights, MD 20743

Medleaf
9520 Marlboro Pike,
Unit 103 & 104
Upper Marlboro, MD 20772

Salvera
4201 Northview Dr., Suite 100
Bowie, MD 20716

True Wellness Laurel
14703 Baltimore Ave., Suite B
Laurel, MD 20707

Waave Cannabis
7327 Hanover Ct., Suite A
Greenbelt, MD 20770

QUEEN ANNE’S COUNTY
Ash + Ember
202 Coursevall Dr., Suite 108
Centreville, MD 21617

ST. MARY’S COUNTY
Southern Maryland Relief
28105 Three Notch Rd.
Mechanicsville, MD 20659

WASHINGTON COUNTY
Maryland Heath & Wellness Center, Inc.
1571 Wesel Blvd.
Hagerstown, MD 21740

WICOMICO COUNTY
Peninsula Alternative Health
400 Snow Hill Rd.
Salisbury, MD 21804

WORCESTER COUNTY
Hi-Tide
12600 Marjan Ln., Unit 100
Ocean City, MD 21842

OC Botanicals, LLC
12600 Marjan Ln., Unit 100
Ocean City, MD 21842

Positive Energy
9939 Jerry Mack Rd., Suite 500
Ocean City, MD 21842

While most people start off their year thinking about meal preps and workout plans, we’re asking an entirely different question: What’s on tap in the drink world for 2019? We asked some local experts—brewers, distillers, bartenders, and wine makers—to conjure their best ESP skills and predict what drink styles we’ll be seeing more of in the year to come.

IPAs are Here to Stay
Brewers are still waiting for lagers to have their big day in the sun, but consumers will continue to want their beer hop-heavy. “Juicy, hazy, New England-style, brut, and sour will all continue to be applied to IPA, IPA, IPA,” says Union Craft Brewing co-owner Jon Zerivitz. However, some of the novelty of the milkshake-style IPAs might wear off and you’ll see brewers playing less with lactose than they did in 2018, according to Hop Culture. While Wet City owners PJ and Josh Sullivan say they are hearing “chatter” regarding lager beers, they echo the IPA growth prediction. “The popularity of Hazy IPAs is still going strong,” PJ says. “And we don’t see any end in sight.”
Where to try now: So many options! Change Order at Union; Lil Woozy at Wet City; Nobo at Monument City; Astrodon at Peabody Heights.

CBD, THC, OMG
It’s easy to find CBD—a cannabis compound that is not psychoactive like THC—in oils, juices, and sparkling water around town. But expect it to slip into more and more cocktails this coming year. Some bars will give you off-menu options and the bartenders at Gunther & Co. even mixed up some for a dispensary event last fall. This week, Frederick-based Flying Dog Brewery announced that it’s releasing Hop Chronic, a non-alcoholic IPA infused with therapeutic cannabinoids available at dispensaries throughout Maryland. (Release of the product is subject to regulatory and legal approvals.) “We see a lot of interest in cannabis from the craft beer community,” says Ben Savage, CMO of Flying Dog, which is partnering with Green Leaf Medical Cannabis on the product. “There are definitely similarities between the natural flavor profiles we extract from hops and the terpenes and found in cannabis.”
Where to try now: CBD oils are available at MOM’s Organic Market and area dispensaries to try out your cocktail-making skills at home.

Blurring of Categories
It’s no secret that the craft beverage market has become a really crowded space, so brands are looking to diversify and break out in any way they can. Looking at the year ahead, many breweries, wineries, cideries, and distilleries will be collaborating to come up with sub-genres to potentially attract a new customer base. “At our bar, we’ve seen kettle sours bring wine drinkers and people that don’t normally drink beer into the craft beer scene,” PJ of Wet City says. Lyon Distilling in St. Michael’s and Jailbreak Brewing in Laurel just collaborated on a “beerskey,” or a beer distilled into a whiskey, and Old Westminster Winery (OWW) is seeing great success by mixing it up. “Some of our most popular products are the wine and cider hybrids,” says Drew Baker, co-owner of OWW. “Producers—whether you’re making beer, wine, or spirits—are looking to fill that space in between.”
Where to try now: Pip & Berry from OWW at Grand Cru; Cherry Berliner Cider at Union Craft.

Non-Alcoholic Cocktails
Yes, this is a thing! Dry January participants can rejoice as the popularity of teetotalling and even zero-proof spirits will make a bigger impact on the market this year. “A large part of the population is not drinking as much as they used to or are a bit more conscientious about their intake,” says R. Bar manager Amie Ward. “This is a great thing! But it does require bars and restaurants to start thinking about alternative options. Simply throwing together juices isn’t going to cut it.” Non-alcoholic spirit companies—like Seedlip and Ceder’s—have launched in recent years, applying the same distilling process and equipment to create zero-proof booze. But, more commonly, bars in New York City, Chicago, and LA, are simply taking the alcohol out to create thoughtful and tasty mocktails.
Where to try now: R. Bar has four options that start as non-alcoholic and include a suggested spirit; Woodberry Kitchen has a lovely mocktail menu.

Ready-to-Drink
Thought the concept of bottled and canned cocktails has been around for a while, things are starting to get a little more sophisticated. “When people think ‘ready-to-drink,’ there is the unfortunate connotation of the sugary stuff from the 2000s,” says Jaime Windon, co-owner of Lyon and president of the Maryland Distillers Guild. “But you’re going to see the new age of bottled cocktails. You don’t have to go to the bar to necessarily have a beautiful cocktail.” Many brands around the country are bottling classic cocktails like the negroni (sign me up!) to elevate the trend. Next month, winemakers at OWW will be coming out with a low-calorie, low-proof spritzer cocktail in a can. As Windon sums up: “People want less work.”
Where to try now: The 84-proof Rock & Rum, basically a rum old-fashioned, at Lyon Distilling.

Fermentation Experimentation
Of course, the fermentation process is crucial in making alcohol of all forms and flavors, but expect people to get pretty weird this year. Brewers will play more with barrel-fermented and mixed-fermented sours for extra tart and acidity, which many drinkers in the market have demanded. Plus, fermented beverages like kombucha will still have a place as mixers or additives in booze. And exotic fermented cocktails like the pineapple-flavored Tepache are staying prevalent on local bar menus, as well. “I’ve many customers start to appreciate the more complex, mixed-fermentation sours these days,” says PJ of Wet City.
Where to try now: The Artista Zynergia barrel-aged sour series at Wet City; Tepache at Alma Cocina Latina and Clavel.