Marijuana Business Magazine October 2019

October 2019 | mjbizdaily.com 45 A NewKind of Medical With the rise of adult-use cannabis, experts see medicinal marijuana dominated by two distinct markets: wellness products and government-approved medicines By Omar Sacirbey I s the U.S. medical marijuana industry doomed? Amid news reports suggesting that MMJ markets are plateauing or shrinking in some states—particularly those that have approved the recreational use of marijuana (see chart on page 46), it’s reasonable to believe cannabis executives are bailing out of medical and plowing resources into adult-use products. Not so. Many cannabis companies are doubling down on their MMJ bets. They don’t see an ever-shrinking medical marijuana future, but rather an evolution of markets and a science-driven expansion in products, formulations and delivery methods. “It’ll look different than the way we think about it today,” said Nicholas Vita, CEO of Columbia Care, a New York- based, vertically integrated cannabis company operating in 14 states. People will no longer think about cannabis as merely medical and recreational—a binary perspective foisted on patients and other consumers by regulators, according to Vita. Instead, he said, people will have a third category to consider: wellness. Contrary to some suggestions, the future of medical marijuana brims with opportunity. Unlike today's medical and recreational markets, the future will feature a third market: wellness. To thrive, companies need to consider the following factors: • Consumer demographics are changing, especially as more baby boomers and women enter the cannabis market. • Many items sold today under a medi- cal label will fall into the wellness cat- egory in the future, while medicinal goods will be FDA approved and look more like modern pharmaceuti- cal products. • Regulators at both the state and federal levels will have growing roles in future MMJ markets. • A growing number of companies are hiring executives from health and science industries to improve their operations. • Biosynthetic cannabinoid produc- tion could be the single biggest disruptor in medical cannabis by being a more efficient alternative to plant-produced cannabinoids.