“This is a land grab, and there are a discrete number of prime license opportunities,” Steve White, CEO of Harvest Health, said in the April call with investors, referring to state permits to grow and sell marijuana.
White sees the cannabis market as “oligopolistic” — one where a handful of companies control production and sales. Such a market would make it harder for smaller businesses to compete, and potentially would keep prices artificially high.
If Harvest follows through and opens 21 dispensaries, it will control 14 percent of Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana market, which was set up with the intention to prevent precisely that kind of market concentration.
Yet companies like Harvest are using loopholes in the state’s law to snap up cannabis properties. Harvest alone has a war chest of $500 million set aside for acquiring smaller cannabis companies.
It’s “a nightmare scenario come to life for patients,” said Chris Goldstein, an organizer for NORML, who advocated for medical marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania.
Since Pennsylvania launched its medical marijuana program in 2018, large multi-state marijuana companies — including Culver City, Calif.-based Medmen Enterprises and Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries as well as AES Compassionate Care and Canada’s Tilt Holdings — have planted their flags in the state or are expanding their footprint through backdoor arrangements.