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Troy Dayton kicked off a two-day conference on the marijuana indusrtry in Oregon. Dayton, who heads a California company that matches marijuana businesses with investors, encouraged entrepreneurs to think beyond dispensaries and marijuana production when it comes to business opportunities in the state.

(Noelle Crombie/The Oregonian)

ASHLAND -- If the packed meeting room Thursday at the refined Ashland Springs Hotel is any gauge, interest in Oregon’s medical marijuana industry is, pardon the pun, high.

The Oregon Medical Marijuana Business Conference, the brainchild of Ashland businessman Alex Rogers, opened Thursday morning with a keynote address by Troy Dayton, the man behind The ArcView Group, a San Francisco-based business that, for a fee, pairs marijuana entrepreneurs with deep-pocketed investors.

The sold-out two-day event in Ashland is one of two conferences this week that focus on the business of marijuana – the latest sign that the state’s once-underground industry has moved into the mainstream. Beginning in March, the Oregon Health Authority will register medical marijuana retail outlets, the first effort to regulate an already thriving trade.

About 150 people registered for the Ashland conference. Rogers said he turned away another 250 because the space couldn't accommodate the crowd.

Dayton, 36, on Thursday described an enterprise that’s competitive, but awash in opportunities.

“This is a real unique moment in history from a political, cultural and business standpoint,” he said. “And cannabis is at the crux of all three.”

Oregon, which he called “a unique regulatory model,” is in a position for major business opportunities, Dayton said. He pointed out how under the new dispensary law, only marijuana retailers, not growers, face regulation. That, coupled with the lack of state and local taxes on marijuana, are attractive to businesses.

Making it even more appealing to businesses: He said and other marijuana advocates view Oregon as among the next states to legalize the drug for recreational use.

Dayton, who got his start as a fundraiser for the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization group based in Washington, D.C., started ArcView in 2010. His company has been featured in magazines that target private wealth managers and venture capital companies and mainstream publications like Fortune and USA Today.

While dispensaries and producing marijuana are obvious choices for entrepreneurs, Dayton urged people to think “outside the box” when it comes to capitalizing on the industry’s potential.

He outlined the biggest areas of growth:

Machines and technology that extract compounds from the marijuana plant are a “hot area,” he said. These systems, called supercritical fluid extraction or CO2 extraction systems, are used to make hash oil or concentrates.

People who make these machines, as well as those who make and sell the end result, are in demand as states crack down on the production of butane honey oil, a concentrated form of marijuana that relies on a highly flammable gas to make hash oil.

“This is the oil that goes into edibles and 'vape' pens and e-cigarettes for cannabis,” he said. “They can’t make this stuff fast enough.”

Also popular: business services, such as companies that provide insurance or security for medical marijuana facilities

“The industry is underserved by those industries,” he said.

Businesses that reduce the environmental costs of growing marijuana also are a potentially lucrative niche, he said. Marijuana cultivation is heavily dependent on water and electricity so greenhouse technologies that rely on solar power, for instance, are money-makers, Dayton said.

He pointed to the standing-room only crowd at Thursday’s workshops to underscore the hunger for information about how to get into the trade and how to sustain a business. He said businesses that provide market research and organize industry conferences are poised to do well.

The conference continues Friday. A second cannabis business conference hosted by the National Cannabis Industry Association will be held in Portland Saturday.

-- Noelle Crombie