Are your favorite brands always disappearing?
Yeah… ours too.
We’ve been chatting with friends in the local scene, including growers, extractors, and budtenders alike, and here’s the tea:
Multi-State Operators (MSOs) are straight-up ghosting their vendors. We’re talking unpaid invoices, months behind, no callbacks. And it’s not just a logistical mess, it feels intentional.
When brands don’t get paid, they can’t make payroll. They can’t produce. They can’t survive.
Meanwhile, the big dogs with investors to please?
They’ll happily kill off smaller competition if it means stacking the bottom line, even if the quality drops faster than your tolerance after a tolerance break.
And the worst part?
You’re the one stuck paying $60+ an eighth for mid.
So what’s really happening here? And what can you do to keep the culture alive?
Let’s break it down…
What Cannabis MSOs Are Doing (and Why It’s a Problem)
These aren’t isolated incidents. This is becoming the norm. Dispensaries tied to MSOs will place big orders, stock their shelves, and then… just sit on the invoice. It’s a financial chokehold, and when the money doesn’t come through, smaller vendors are left scrambling – cutting staff, halting production, or shutting down entirely.
And let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t a mistake.
It’s a strategy.
If you think these billion-dollar operators don’t have automated billing and legal teams to handle payments, think again. When small vendors fail, guess who swoops in to “rescue” the supply chain? The same folks who broke it.
2. Controlling the Dispensary Shelves: Erasing Independent Options
Once the smaller brands are out of the picture, MSOs move in fast. You’ll start seeing shelves dominated by “house” brands or “exclusive drops” that all trace back to the same corporate umbrella.
Suddenly, that vibrant, diverse selection you were used to becomes one-note. No more quirky, one-off strains. No more fire from that weird little farm up north that put love into every nug. Just uniform jars with different names and the same dry, disappointing flower inside.
Real talk: If you’ve ever looked at a wall of weed and thought,
“Why does it all kind of suck now?”
This is why.
Shelf space is power. When MSOs control it, they get to set the narrative – and the pricing. Your options get narrower, and the real ones who built the culture get pushed out in silence.
3. Profit Over Plant: When Quantity Replaces Quality
Most MSOs are chasing growth metrics. That means cost-cutting, scalability, and maximizing margins – not preserving terpenes or enhancing the user experience.
Forget about slow-cured, hand-trimmed, sungrown care. These operations are built for mass production. Indoor facilities crank out high-yield, low-risk genetics with a focus on “THC percentage” and not much else.
You ever notice how all the flower smells the same these days?
That’s because it is basically the same.
There’s no room for passion in these places. Budtenders aren’t trained on lineage or effects – they’re handed sales sheets. Packaging gets shinier. Testing gets gamed. And consumers are told it’s “top shelf” because a machine printed it on the label.
Meanwhile, the real top shelf stuff?
It’s no longer on the shelf at all.
4. Why the Weed Got Worse? Think Little Caesars.
One Redditor nailed it with this brutal (and accurate) take:
“You’re asking why Little Caesars doesn’t make gourmet pizza – they don’t need to. They sell shitty $6 pizzas and people are okay with it.”
And that’s exactly what’s happening in weed.
With $40 ounces and discount carts flooding shelves, the market isn’t demanding better – it’s settling for cheaper. MSOs know it. So they lean into volume, not quality.
The weed doesn’t have to be amazing anymore, it just has to be cheap enough and hyped enough.
That’s why strain names are louder than the flower. Why mids wear top-shelf packaging. Why terp profiles are getting replaced with THC percentage stickers and QR code spin.
If the average buyer keeps buying fast food weed, MSOs will keep making it.
Good weed? That’s becoming the rare, expensive exception, not the standard.
5. You Pay More for Less: The Real Cost Hits the Consumer
You’d think with all this scaling up, prices would go down. Right?
Wrong.
Somehow, even with bulk operations and cost-cutting, MSOs are charging more. Premium prices for mid-quality product. Why? Because they can. Once they control the dispensary, they control the markup.
When the smaller brands were around, they kept pricing honest. Craft growers offered quality at fair prices because they had to compete on actual value. Now, with fewer players in the game, the MSOs are jacking up prices while slashing quality.
And the worst part?
Most consumers don’t even know it’s happening. They walk in, see what’s on the shelf, and assume it must be what’s “good.” But it’s not. It’s just what’s left.
$60 for dusty popcorn nugs and fake-hype pre-rolls?
That ain’t premium – that’s predatory.
6. The Culture Is Getting Gutted: A Legacy Lost
Cannabis was never supposed to become this.
It was born in resistance, raised by communities, nurtured by outlaws, artists, and healers. It was a plant of power – not profit. But now, that culture is being erased by boardrooms and marketing teams that never touched a trimmer or got dirt under their nails.
MSOs are flooding the space with safe, sterile brands that look good on an investor pitch deck. They hijack the language of the culture, “craft,” “legacy,” “community”, without actually respecting or supporting any of it.
We’ve watched legendary growers go broke while corporate brands with no roots make millions. We’ve seen hash makers get shut out while low-quality “live resin” with fancy packaging dominates the market.
This isn’t just business. It’s cultural theft.
The stories, the farms, the communities – they matter. And when MSOs use money to wipe them off the map, the soul of cannabis goes with them.
What You Can Do About It
(And Why It Still Matters)
The cannabis industry is changing, fast – and not always for the better. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept a watered-down, corporate version of what this plant was always meant to be. The real ones are still out there. The craft growers. The legacy extractors. The people who built this community from the ground up.
But they need you to survive.
This isn’t just a rant, it’s a rally cry. If you’re tired of seeing mid-grade product sold as luxury weed and watching your favorite brands disappear, here’s what you can actually do about it:
1. Buy From Dispensaries That Support Small Brands
Not all shops are owned by MSOs. Independent dispensaries are still fighting the good fight, curating shelves with intention and giving space to the people who grow with passion, not profit motives.
When you walk in, ask:
“Which brands are local? Who do you work with directly?”
That simple question tells the dispensary that you care, and if enough people start asking, they’ll have to start answering.
2. Follow the Cannabis Brands You Love, and Make Some Noise
Social media is a tool. Use it. Follow the small-batch growers, the hash heads, the makers who are still putting love into what they do. When they post about drops, events, or even struggles – support, share, and show up.
These brands are running lean. Sometimes, your repost means more visibility. Sometimes, your $40 eighth helps them pay rent. And sometimes, your voice is the reason they don’t give up.
Reviews, likes, tags – it’s all free and it all helps.
3. Tell the Truth. Loudly
You have a voice. Use it. If you bought something dry, weak, or way overpriced from an MSO brand pretending to be premium – call it out. Don’t be afraid to say when the product doesn’t match the hype.
We’re not saying be a hater. But if we let the bad actors take over without pushback, the good ones won’t stand a chance. The industry only gets better if we demand better.
4. Support the People, Not Just the Product
Sometimes we forget: cannabis is still people-powered. Behind every jar is a story, a grower who lost sleep perfecting a new pheno, an extractor obsessed with dialing in the perfect temp, a budtender who fought for legalization before it was trendy.
When you find a brand that stands for more than just a logo, stick with them. Share their story. Help build their future. The MSOs have marketing dollars – we’ve got community.
5. Don’t Let the Culture Die in Silence
This is about more than weed. This is about preserving the art, the integrity, and the history of a movement that started long before it was “legal.”
The plant has always been medicine, expression, resistance, and release. If we let it become just another product on another shelf run by people who don’t love it, we lose something sacred.
But if we speak up, show up, and keep holding the line – we keep the spirit alive.
Every choice you make is part of this story.
Make it count.
The Quiet Part No One Talks About
Here’s the thing: a lot of cannabis consumers still don’t feel empowered to speak up. After decades of stigma, we were trained to stay lowkey. To keep our heads down. To not rock the boat.
But that silence?
That’s exactly what MSOs are counting on.
The fewer questions we ask, the easier it is for them to water down the product, inflate the price, and rewrite the culture in their image.
The war on weed didn’t just criminalize the plant, it silenced the people who loved it.
And now that silence is costing us again.
If we don’t speak out, share our stories, and demand better, we’re letting them take the soul of cannabis all over again.
Keep the Culture Lit
Dank Budz isn’t here to just get high and vibe. We’re here to protect what matters. To call it like it is. And to uplift the people and products that actually deserve your money, your love, and your loyalty.
Let’s build something better. Together.
Stay lifted. Stay loud.
– The Dank Budz Crew
P.S. We’re keeping the conversation going on Threads. Join us and connect with others who give a damn about good weed and good people.
