Adam J. Smith

Guest column

Oregon currently produces far more legal cannabis than it can consume. Over the past two-plus years, wholesale prices here have crashed, and right now hundreds of millions of dollars of local capital, primarily from entrepreneurs, their families, friends, and small investors, representing hundreds of farms, dozens of companies, and thousands of jobs, is at imminent risk of being wiped out or bought out for pennies by deep-pocketed outsiders. Oregon, and our rural communities, can ill afford that kind of economic devastation.

But Oregon does not have an oversupply problem. It has a prohibition problem.

If Oregon producers had access to other legal and soon-to-be legal markets today, it would need every ounce of cannabis that could be produced under current licenses, and then it would need to expand production significantly. A legal path to export would virtually end diversion into illicit markets. And everyone would get a fair price.

The issue:Two Views: Should Oregon allow export of marijuana crop?

A different take:Allowing Oregon to export marijuana is folly that will encourage more growing

How we think about the issue matters. If we treat this as an oversupply problem, the answers will involve punishing farmers. “Can we push producers out of the market? Limit licensing? Reduce canopy size?”

But when we understand this as a political problem, a market-access problem, the solutions we come to are better for our farmers and our economy. “How do we engage our political leaders to help us gain legal access to new markets, and how do we position Oregon as a global leader?”

When Oregon legalized cannabis in 2014 after more than 80 years of failed prohibition and 40 years of disastrous drug war, we did something very wise and very Oregonian. We legalized the industry we already had, with an ad campaign that urged medical and illicit producers to “Go Legal” and enter the licensed, regulated market.

But the industry that thrived here for decades was always, primarily, an export industry. Very quickly, licensed producers have found themselves hemmed into a market of fewer than 4 million people.

Meanwhile, the era of prohibition is ending. Michigan has just joined Oregon and eight other states in legalizing adult-use cannabis. New York and New Jersey have pledged to follow this year, and other states are on the horizon.

But Oregon produces better cannabis, more efficiently and sustainably than anywhere in the country. We should embrace and celebrate our status as the nation’s best production region, and take the lead in advocating nationally for a normalized, safely regulated industry where consumers have legal access to our products.

The question isn’t whether Oregon should export cannabis. Oregon has always exported cannabis. The question is whether those exports will be legal, regulated, tested, tracked, secure, and taxed. And whether the Oregon businesses and communities that have so much at stake will benefit from the global brand they have built together.

Oregon should act now to remove barriers to cannabis export under state law, and Oregon’s political leaders should stand with the industry to demand that the federal government allow safe, secure, and regulated commerce between willing, legal markets.

Adam J. Smith is the founder and executive director of Oregon's Craft Cannabis Alliance. Reach him at adam@craftcannabisalliance.org.