As with many human endeavors worth doing, the drive towards cannabis legalization has been long and difficult. Though it seems that we are on the precipice of federal legalization in the US, little attention has been paid to what legalization will look like after the STATES Act or similar legislation is enacted.

Fortunately for us, we have examples to look at. Several pioneering states have served as laboratories for decriminalization and legalization over the past two decades, and the lessons learned can provide a road map for best practices moving forward. In future articles, we’ll also explore second, third, and n-order effects of legalization, various challenges or surprises that may arise, as well as potential solutions to minimize harm and maximize public benefit and profitability.

Once federal legalization passes, we will see states without systems currently in place scrambling to develop new legal regimes in response. These states will likely be left wholly unprepared for this new world, and the first major question for these states will be whether to create a unified legal cannabis regime for both medical and recreational markets, or to keep them separate.

In several markets, we have seen the negative effects for medical patients when medical markets and recreational markets are united. When recreational inventories sold out in Canada and the US, medical users were hurt. It is one thing for a recreational customer if their favorite dispensary is sold out, but for a medical cannabis patient, an undersupply can create much bigger problems. Additionally, with recreational legalization, retailers spend more time on recreational customers while cancer patients or disabled veterans must wait in line before they can access their trusted cannabis products and be on their way.

Respecting cannabis as a medical solution for patients means that it is imperative that separate medical regimes be created in every state alongside recreational ones. This can safeguard patients rights (and wallets!). States that forego creating medical regimes after federal legalization will risk alienating medical cannabis patients which in turn could significantly impact local revenues. In a subsequent part of this series I will address how this phenomenon will help drive sales online.

Medical cannabis regimes should be designed out of respect for the interests of medical cannabis patients, and there should be be benefits for enrolling in the medical program. Tax benefits are an obvious, simple differentiator that could lower the cost for medical patients, but are not the only way that medical cannabis could be differentiated. Legislators could take advantage of other unique solutions such as allowing longer operating hours for customer-facing cannabis businesses that serve medical patients.

Some states or cities may opt to make access to cannabis more difficult. We will likely see this behavior in parts of the South or other conservative regions with the implementation of blue laws to forbid cannabis sales on Sundays before noon, or Sundays at all. We have even seen similar laws even in liberal states such as California where fewer than one in three cities allow any kind of cannabis business within city limits.

Conservative states and jurisdictions will likely look to these examples to see ways in which they could restrict the effects of legalization and curb the development of cannabis as much as possible. Protections at the state and federal level will be necessary to safeguard the rights of medical cannabis patients. Medical programs ought to be exempt from these kinds of rules so that the underprivileged may still be able to access their necessary medicine without needing to move or drive hundreds of miles.

Federal legalization may seem like the end of a long journey, but it’s really just the beginning of a whole new world of possibilities. In order to maximize the potential of this new world, we should first act to safeguard the rights of medical cannabis patients to start the post-prohibition era off on the right foot.