CANNABIZ ENTREPRENEURS
Taking it Easy at Easy Mountain
A small-town dispensary owner shares his perspective on cannabis legalization .
by Drew Beine , contributing writer
Artwork and all photos courtesy Easy Mountain Cannabis .
Editor ’ s Notes : Adult-use cannabis sales begin this month , making history in Missouri by becoming the 21st state to legalize marijuana for adult use . Missouri also made history with the passage of Amendment 3 by becoming the first state in the nation to automatically expunge past , nonviolent marijuana offenses by a vote of the people . We asked a small town dispensary store co-owner in Republic , MO , who , unlike the majority of dispensary businesses in the state , only has one location , to give us his view about what it means to him and his business to be able to sell to both medical patients and adult-use customers . Here ’ s what Drew had to say .
C annabis is everywhere these days , and while that presents obvious benefits to our Missouri community , it also has clarified our purpose here at Easy Mountain — to preserve the cannabis culture forever .
With multi-state operations scaling to neo conglomerate-sized business models , the upcoming inevitability of federal legalization , and then most likely global legalization , the identity of cannabis and its consumers is changing on an immeasurable scale . This rapid growth is great , but will the industry continue to revere cannabis the way it is designed to be ? Or is this our MTV era ? Is legalization just one last hurrah before the soul and passion are commercialized to the point of being unrecognizable from their origin ? In some ways , yes . There will always be a large business model seeking to capitalize on an opportunity , increasing volume and availability while decreasing costs and “ quality .” To that we say , “ There will always remain an Easy Mountain .”
Drew Beine , co-owner of Easy Mountain Cannabis in Republic , MO .
58 February 2023
Most know cannabis has been the communal catalyst for many progressive movements over the last 100 years or since it ’ s been criminalized . The “ Hippy ” or free love movement also became the foundation for the antiwar movement . It also directly inspired the Rock ‘ N ’ Roll Revolution that came along at the same time . All owe a large portion of their identity to cannabis . Today , 25 years after California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis , most U . S . states have legalized medical cannabis , and almost half have legalized adult use . But with all that progress , it certainly feels like we might have forgotten from where we came .
Maybe at risk of revealing what was already implied , many of us learned about cannabis before it was legal . It was illegal , and it was scary . Plenty of us got in trouble , some much worse than others . But even if we didn ’ t get in trouble with the law , there were always risks and consequences for discovering and utilizing the truth of cannabis . You could seriously mess your life up — “ If ” — your family found
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