MISSOURI RECIPROCITY: THE “YOU CARRY MY SHIT, I’LL CARRY YOURS” ECONOMIC SYSTEM

By Boof du Jour

Filed under: How Missouri Legalized Weed and Accidentally Legalized Not Trying.

Missouri didn’t just legalize cannabis. It legalized shortcuts.

From day one, the state built a system where vertical integration dominates, cultivation, manufacturing, and retail bundled together under the same ownership umbrellas. On paper, it was supposed to create efficiency. In practice, it created a closed circuit where shelf space is decided long before a customer ever walks through the door.

And once that circuit closed, competition quietly exited the building.

Vertical Integration Didn’t Create a Market - It Replaced One

In Missouri, vertically integrated operators make up the majority of active license holders.

A significant percentage of companies control at least two license types, and many control all three.

That means the same entity that grows the weed also processes it, brands it, distributes it, and sells it to you, often in the same building.

When that happens, the role of “buyer” stops being real.

There’s no discovery. No risk. No reason to ask whether a product deserves space.

Shelf space becomes an internal memo, not a decision.

If you own the store, your product doesn’t need demand. It needs a barcode.

Everyone Else Got Squeezed - Hard

Now zoom out to the operators who aren’t vertically integrated.

Missouri issued cultivation-only licenses. Manufacturing-only licenses. People who wanted to grow weed. People who wanted to make edibles. People who never planned to run retail and didn’t have the capital, staff, or skillset to do so.

Those operators quickly learned an ugly truth: Retail is the choke point. And retail already belongs to someone else.

Vertically integrated stores don’t need outside brands. They already have:

• house flower

• house vapes

• house edibles

• house prerolls

• house “premium” tiers

• house “value” tiers

Every shelf slot is already spoken for, by ownership.

So what happens when you’re a standalone cultivator or manufacturer with real costs, real payroll, and no guaranteed path to market?

You panic.

How Missouri Accidentally Forced Everyone Into Retail

This is the part nobody admits because it makes the whole thing look insane.

Missouri didn’t just allow vertical integration. It forced everyone else to respond to it.

Standalone operators were left with three options:

1. Beg vertically integrated retailers for space

2. Enter reciprocity agreements

3. Open dispensaries they never wanted to run

Option one doesn’t scale. Option two doesn’t require excellence. Option three turns growers and processors into accidental retailers overnight. So they did all three.

That’s why Missouri is full of dispensaries run by people who:

• never studied retail

• never built consumer brands

• never wanted to deal with staffing, shrink, merchandising, or customer experience

• 
  

They’re not bad people. They’re just trapped in a system that told them retail was mandatory for survival, not because they were good at it, but because everyone else already owned the exits.

Enter Reciprocity: Cannabis’ Favorite Coping Mechanism

This is where reciprocity stops being a buzzword and becomes a survival reflex.

Reciprocity isn’t collaboration. It’s a no-work mutual aid pact between brands that know they won’t win on merit alone.

You carry my shit. I’ll carry yours. We both get to say we’re “statewide.”

Nobody has to test demand. Nobody has to outperform house brands. Nobody has to answer why nothing’s moving. Reciprocity replaces competition with politeness.

The Market Turned Into a Favor Exchange With Price Tags

This is how Missouri ended up with:

• identical genetics everywhere

• endless “award-winning” claims nobody can source

• brands that exist in every store but move in none of them

Every jar screaming #1 BRAND Every press release declaring “fastest-growing” Every deck claiming “budtender favorite” All voted on by the same five dudes who share a group chat and a distro route.

If every brand is #1, then nothing is actually good. It just means shelf space stopped meaning anything.

The Customer Was Never Invited to the Deal

This is the part that ties it all together:

Reciprocity is when two companies agree the customer doesn’t need to be part of the conversation.

No consumer research. 

No taste testing. 

No loyalty tracking. 

No concern for repeat purchase behavior.

Just logos, SKUs, and the quiet belief that discounts will smooth over mediocrity. Cannabis is now one of the only industries where asking “does anyone actually want this?” is treated like hostility.

Missouri Didn’t Build a Marketplace - It Built a Closed Loop

In a real market:

• bad products fail

• good products earn space

• retail is curated, not inherited

In Missouri:

• bad products circulate instead of dying

• good products fight upstream

• shelf space is pre-owned and pre-traded

Vertical integration made the walls. Reciprocity taught everyone how to lean on them.

Together, they’ve created a system where access beats excellence, relationships beat results, and failure just means relaunching with a new partner.

Final Thought From the Field

This isn’t community. It’s mutual assured midness.

Reciprocity didn’t raise the bar. It buried it, then congratulated itself for inclusivity. Missouri didn’t fail because of bad actors. It failed because it confused ownership with quality and called it collaboration.

Until shelf space is earned instead of traded, Missouri won’t have a cannabis marketplace.

It’ll have a group chat with price tags.