NFPA Journal - July/August 2018 - 58

I

n June, the fifth annual Cannabis World Congress &
Business Exposition occupied the sprawling Jacob
K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. A
confident enthusiasm permeated the proceedings,
which included talks from CEOs, professional
athletes, and the actor Whoopi Goldberg. On the
expo floor, hundreds of exhibitors hawked a vast
range of products and services. Deep-pocketed
investors mingled with marijuana industry
executives. It was easy to understand the buoyant
mood around one of the world's fastest growing
industries: estimates put the potential future U.S.
legal cannabis market as high as $100 billion annually,
five times larger than the NFL and twice as big as the
country's wine and ice cream markets combined.
When it comes to marijuana legalization and market
expansion, "there is a feeling of real inevitability now,"
is how one Colorado manufacturer put it to me.

Wall Street veteran and cannabis investor Sumit Mehta told a rapt audience
during his talk on the state of the industry
that he expects full federal legalization by
2021. "Money is pouring into this space,
and one can see the political tides in this
country shifting," he said. In the near
future, "restaurants will be offering cannabis pairings. Marijuana tinctures will be on
the shelves of every pharmacy in America."
So far, 2018 has given the industry many
reasons to be optimistic. California, the
world's fifth-largest economy, opened its
first recreational pot shops January 1, the
beginning of what is expected to be a $5
billion industry by next year. Recreational
marijuana retail stores opened July 1 in
Massachusetts, where sales are expected to
surpass $1 billion by 2020. In Canada, the
government voted in June to fully legalize
recreational adult use of marijuana, with
sales expected to begin nationwide in the
fall. The five largest publically traded marijuana companies in Canada are already
each valued at more than $1 billion, according to the finance newspaper Barron's.

58 | NFPA JOURNAL * J U L Y /A U G U S T 2 0 1 8

But while investors and entrepreneurs
are delighted over the continued spread of
legal sales and manufacturing of cannabis
products, many regulators, inspectors, and
fire departments view the developments
with trepidation. Most new industries
present unique challenges and steep
learning curves; few, however, are growing
as swiftly, are as multifaceted, or are as
committed to innovation as the marijuana
industry.
The industry's rapid expansion has left
fire officials across the country searching for answers, says Ray Bizal, NFPA's
director of regional operations, who has
given upwards of 30 presentations on
fire safety in the commercial pot industry
for fire officials and city governments
across the U.S. "The average fire department knows next to nothing about this
industry," he told me. "I hear a lot of
people say that they just sort of stumbled
across a marijuana facility and they're
asking themselves, 'what do we do?' Most
jurisdictions have never dealt with this
business before." Recognizing that, last
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2018
