A steady stream of customers walk into the From the Earth dispensary on Southwest Boulevard each day. They present IDs, make their selections from a large menu of options and leave with small brown paper bags of weed.
Though business is usually brisk at this and other Kansas City weed shops — reflected in Missouri's legal weed trade topping $1 billion in sales in 2024 — cannabis business owners say they struggle to turn a profit.
"We're paying about double the (federal) tax of a traditional business," said John Mueller, CEO of Greenlight, a Kansas City company that owns 32 dispensaries nationwide, including five around Kansas City.
Because the federal government classifies cannabis as a Schedule I drug — defined as having no medical value and a high risk of abuse — legal cannabis businesses can't deduct normal business expenses on their tax forms. That's making it harder for state-licensed marijuana businesses across the country to turn a profit and compete against blackmarket weed sellers.
Read more at The Beacon Missouri