by Travis Mateer

By the end of the legislative session in Montana, which will be early next month, the information in this post could be useless. But for now I’d like some reader feedback on the probably NOT very good idea of featuring a local Cannabis dispensary as a one-time, or reoccurring, sponsor of the Week in Review podcast.

After talking to a lobbyist and the Montana eduction guy with the Cannabis Control Division, which is housed under Montana’s Department of Revenue, I am armed with the information I need to craft a podcast/Cannabis sponsorship advertisement, but should I?

Since I’m so damn generous with all the information I give away for FREE with five FREE articles a week and a FREE podcast every Sunday, I’ll just explain what ANYONE can do if they want to court a Cannabis business operating in the over-saturated, wild-west Cannabis market here in Montana.

The first thing to understand is any prospective ad can say NOTHING about the product being sold. Can you offer a promo code, I asked the education guy? No. Can I say anything about deals? No. Can I even say this business sells Cannabis? Yes, I was told. Ok, so what else can I say?

If you want go down the thorny road of monetizing the existence of a recreational Cannabis market in Montana, essentially what you can say is the name of the business, the location of the business, and its hours of operation. There are a few more things, but I’m not gonna show ALL my cards just yet.

Maybe I should reach out to local developer/music-venue-owner/weed-dealer, Nick Checota, and ask him how HE navigates owning Groove and promoting this weed business at his other businesses (if he does), like his music-promoting business, Logjam Presents, which features shows at Checota-owned venues, like the Wilma and the Top Hat Lounge.

It’s kinda funny to see ALL Checota’s Missoula businesses signing on to the downtown uprising against City/MRA redesign plans like they’re separate entities and NOT the tentacles of a local oligarch still smarting from getting his TIF scheme destroyed by wily locals.

Anyway, without this market able to, you know, directly MARKET ITSELF, what exists is a lot of fear and misinformation among the dispensaries I communicate with about what they can and CANNOT do. Ostensibly this is to keep a strict leash on products that could harm children, unlike other products that you might be hearing about right now because of…marketing?

Later this morning I’ll be having a conversation with a podcaster who doesn’t peddle Blue Chew or push crypto, and I’ll be excited to share the successes of my strategy to keep my focus local. Just don’t measure my success against the numbers inside my bank account, because that shit is running on fumes!

If you’d like to put figurative and/or literal gas in my tank, I’m currently accepting all monetary denominations at Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) and the donation button at my about page.

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