Pubdate: Sun, 09 Nov 2014
Source: Bulletin, The (Bend, OR)
Copyright: 2014 Western Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.bendbulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/62
Author: Danielle Trubow, Bloomberg News

WILL MARIJUANA INDUSTRY ALSO GROW JOBS?

WASHINGTON - Bruce Nassau made his first fortune in the cable 
television industry in Colorado. Now he sees opportunity in legal marijuana.

He and his partners have four shops with about 75 employees that 
serve recreational and medical users, with a fifth for retail opening 
last week. He expects to have about 90 workers total by January.

Nassau, 61, is also consulting and partnering with entrepreneurs 
hoping to get into the medical industry in Illinois and Nevada, where 
he sees "enormous upside opportunity."

Voters in Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia on Nov. 4 
approved legalization of pot for recreational use, following Colorado 
and Washington state in 2012. Legal recreational sales began in both 
states this year. Medical marijuana is allowed in 23 states and also 
is creating legitimate business ventures and jobs amid the patchwork 
of regulations.

In one of those states, Illinois, about 200 people at an Oct. 30 
career fair in Chicago signed up to learn more about the medical 
marijuana industry. The booth was organized by Todd Mitchem, 43, an 
almost five-year veteran of Colorado's industry, where medical use 
has been legal since 2000. Two job fairs in Denver held this year 
drew more than 3,000 people for about 650 positions, Mitchem said.

Opportunities range from entry-level "budtenders" - akin to 
bartenders - to trimmers, growers and managers. Accountants, lawyers 
and marketing executives also are being attracted to the forefront of 
a movement that "will wind up being legal throughout the U.S.," 
Nassau said. "It's an entirely new industry. It's incredible - and 
there are many, many jobs."

Just how many is being debated, although data is starting to be 
collected in Colorado. Businesses involved in the growth, production, 
and sale of marijuana for medicinal or recreational use employed 
3,523 Colorado residents in the first three months of this year, up 
14.2 percent since the end of 2013, according to data compiled by the 
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

In the first nine months since recreational use has been legal in 
Colorado, more than 12,000 residents have received occupational 
licenses, according to the state Department of Revenue. That allows 
them to be directly employed in the industry.

"We're in the first nine months of a 10-year process," said Nicholas 
Colas, chief market strategist of ConvergEx Group in New York. "It's 
like the old sporting analysis that we're not even in the first 
inning. We're in the parking lot."

ConvergEx surveyed 10 stores, mostly in Denver and Boulder, in June 
and October and found business has been steady, with some 100 to 300 
customers a day who spent $50 to $100 per transaction. The consistent 
monthly demand is creating "good and stable jobs," Colas said.

The marijuana industry pulled Chad Drew, 38, away from a corporate 
sales position. The Arizona State University graduate had worked for 
four years in the medical marijuana industry in Colorado when he left 
in 2012 to pursue a career in radio ad sales more related to his 
communications degree.

He realized a year later that the new position "wasn't at all what I 
wanted it to be." Drew passed the background check, paid the $150 
occupational license fee and got hired in January at Evergreen 
Apothecary as a budtender, selling marijuana and educating customers 
for $10 an hour.

He's now an assistant manager earning about $14 an hour and said he's 
thankful for stable wages rather than commissions. Friends often ask 
him how to get into the industry, he said, and the answer depends a 
lot on when shops are expanding.

The numbers don't satisfy Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron, 
who has advocated legalization for more than a decade. Miron, also 
director of economic studies at Washington-based Cato Institute, 
published a working paper on Oct. 23 about the effects of marijuana 
policy in Colorado.

In what is the first part of a longer-term study, he analyzed gross 
domestic product and personal income in the state and said there is 
no empirical evidence that medical marijuana stimulated the economy 
or created jobs. The legalized industry workforce reflects people 
coming from other positions or from the illegal marijuana industry, 
Miron said. "There was never any credible case that we'd see 
meaningful changes in employment."

The industry is offering opportunities particularly to younger 
workers, said John Hudak, a fellow in governance studies at the 
Brookings Institution in Washington, who published a report on 
Colorado's legalization process in July. "That can be a real economic 
positive in a state trying to find jobs for young people and for an 
industry that doesn't require a college degree to do a job or 
extensive training except for higher agriculture."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom