Reflections

420 FILE-Over the holiday season, I had a chance to reconnect with an old friend and reflect on all the stuff I learned in high school and college regarding weed.

As a prep school nerd, my experience with marijuana amounted to knowing a film canister was NOT always for holding film and a certain smell wasn’t necessarily a skunk spraying. It was the eighties, and lines like, “You’re not going to blaze up here, wastoid?” from “The Breakfast Club” movie only proved in the end that smoking a doobie caused the protagonists not to ramble incoherently, but to bond and relate and become better versions of themselves.  

Sitting on the beach with my fraternity brother, we spoke about keggers and beer bongs, and how attitudes towards cannabis have changed. We discussed how the product is tested before its distribution to retailers, “seed to sale” taxation, and local/state regulation. We chatted about compliant zoned real estate, along with the impact of the illicit market and that 75% of California still bans marijuana businesses. 

My job, providing real estate and business opportunities to entrepreneurs in the cannabis space, would have been unimaginable when we were planning our lives back in Iowa City, Iowa circa 1985.  

However, like the theme song from the Lisa Bonet sitcom of the same era – “A Different World” --  told us, “It's a different world, than where you come from.” 

And the world has forever changed.  

2021 will be another landmark year for cannabis, and I’m here to help.

(Gary Mittin is a commercial real estate broker, specializing in cannabis real estate.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.