Today, it’s estimated that one in every four dollars comes from cannabis in the Emerald Triangle. Speculation that mounting tax rates and corporate interests will ruin mom-and-pop farms is widespread. In this grim forecast, some are pinning their hopes on cannabis tourism.
“It’s not the miners who got rich during the gold rush, it was the guys selling shovels and picks,” says Sean Roby, founder and CEO of Bud & Breakfast, a cannabis-friendly lodging company.
Roby purchased the budandbreakfast.com domain in 2002, gambling that an end to marijuana prohibition was imminent. Colorado and Washington state were the first to legalize recreational cannabis in 2012. Twelve years after he bought the domain, Roby launched Bud & Breakfast in Boulder, the country’s new playground for recreational cannabis. With California’s Prop. 64 passing into law in 2018, Roby says he has watched the number of properties on Bud & Breakfast triple.