If we just open stores without more growers online, we’re going to see prices spike, and I don’t think anybody wants to see that.”
By Julia Merola and Ella Walker, Spotlight Delaware
In 2024, Delaware’s new marijuana regulators granted Louise Shelton two social-equity licenses to grow cannabis for the state’s fledgling recreational market.
The licenses were designed to help people who came from areas hardest hit by marijuana prohibition. But two years later, Shelton has not been able to open a cultivation site, and says she may abandon her venture this fall if she can’t find investors for the startup.
Shelton recounts a frustrating two-year experience—marked by institutional delays and bad-faith outside consultants—that she said has left her plans at a standstill.
After receiving her licenses, Shelton was approached by individuals who presented themselves as investors, she said. It was a welcome development for her social-equity endeavor where outside financing is often essential.
But later, Shelton learned that the investors had no money, and instead wanted her to hire them as consultants.
“It was frustrating to say the least because last year we could have been doing fundraisers or something,” she said.
While the details of Shelton’s story are unique, the end result has become common across Delaware’s new recreational marijuana industry. In the two years since licenses were granted—and one year since legal sales began—the industry has failed to meet early expectations.
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Delaware’s First Year Of Legal Marijuana Sales Badly Underperformed Regulators’ Lofty Projections
