Bill Drexler sits in his dispensary in St. Paul on a quiet June morning, sunlight filtering through blacked-out windows (required by law), and wonders how much longer before he can start growing his own cannabis, which should help him break even. For more than two years, he has hustled and scraped by.
Minnesota legalized adult-use (recreational) cannabis in 2023, but the rollout has been slow. This summer, Minnesotans finally began to see cannabis growers reliably stocking dispensaries with some amount of flower—the smokeable stuff.
But Drexler remembers that, for a long time after opening, “we had people coming in every day, asking if we had flower yet.” That was anyone’s guess. “Trying to give them a timeline but not to say, ‘We’re going to have this, no problem’ … it’s hard on the mental health of employees, of everybody.”
Hemp THC edibles and beverages, at least, had come to market thanks to a 2018 loophole in federal law. They’ve made up 95% of Drexler’s inventory…