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Marijuana Consultants Offer Advice To Potential Pot Dealers

File photo of James Lucas of Tacoma Cross, a medical marijuana dispensary
Brianna Butterfield
/
Northwest News Network
File photo of James Lucas of Tacoma Cross, a medical marijuana dispensary

The Northwest’s budding marijuana industry means opportunity for pot consultants.

Several are offering workshops in the coming months on how to comply with new laws in Oregon and Washington.

One website promises to help you "Open a weed store in Oregon." As it turns out, doing that involves a lot of paperwork.

"It is tedious and boring and it's a pain in the butt," admits F. Thurston Pearson, founder of a Portland marijuana consulting firm called the Green Rush Advisory Group.

He has clients who want to sell recreational marijuana in Washington and medical marijuana in Oregon. But he says once the initial excitement dies down, pot entrepreneurs find themselves face-to-face with dozens of pages of rules and regulations.

Pearson started his firm when one friend got halfway through the application process and "just gave up."

Green Rush plans a series of workshops in Portland next month to help prospective pot dealers comply with an Oregon dispensary law that just took effect.

Copyright 2014 Northwest News Network

Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.
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