Easy Mountain offers THC products in Republic

Located behind Republic Ford, new dispensary hits ground running with medical marijuana
 
In November of 2018, Missouri voters overwhelmingly voted to legalize medical marijuana in the state. Since then, 192 medical marijuana dispensaries have been licensed to sell THC products to patients who hold medical marijuana cards. One of these dispensaries is Easy Mountain Cannabis Company, located in Republic.
Easy Mountain, which sells THC products, accessories and apparel, was started by Drew Beine and his business partner, Alex Paulson.
Beine said they started Easy Mountain because they believe in the value of cannabis as medicine.
“We’re both very passionate about medical marijuana, the healing properties,” he said.

 Paulson added that when medical marijuana was legalized, they saw it as an opportunity to serve the community.
“We knew that there was going to be a limited number of people who would get into the industry,” he said. “We were very excited about the industry. We knew that if we wanted to serve our community the right way, (the best way) to do that was to do it ourselves.”
Beine, who has a herniated disk in his back, as well as depression and anxiety, said he could personally attest to the value of medical marijuana; he has used it to help manage these conditions for over 20 years.
“It’s helped mitigate all of those issues,” he said. “It’s not a cure-all; it’s not going to make depression go away, but it definitely helps me manage it, allows me to get through my workday and helps me to take care of my family.”
Getting a license to sell
After the state created its application process, thousands of people attempted to secure licenses to run medical marijuana dispensaries. Paulson, who described the process as “the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life,” said he and Beine “hit the ground running” to prepare their application by studying the licensing process in other states where medical marijuana was already legal.
“What made our application stand out was … the time and energy we spent,” he said. “We, literally, the day after the bill passed, started working on our application. The questions for the application weren’t even out yet, but we could look at other states and see what comparable questions were like. We could go ahead and start developing a security plan, architectural plans and things like that. And so, we really hit the ground running and gave ourselves enough time to … build a team underneath us and everything like that. We just put the right people in the right places, and it worked out for us.”
Easy Mountain offerings
The THC products available at Easy Mountain are ever changing, said Paulson, but some of the products available have included edibles such as gummies and drinks, rolled joints, accessories and apparel. He also said that the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) products they sell are different from the cannabidiol (CBD) products sold elsewhere.
“There are two main cannabinoids that everybody talks about, which are CBD and THC,” he said. “CBD is not regulated in the market. In Missouri, you can basically sell it wherever. Family Video sells it, gas stations sell it, things like that. And then THC is the psychoactive cannabinoid in cannabis, and that is heavily regulated. That is what you see in the products that we carry. We carry CBD products, as well, but they’re typically with THC.”
Legalized medical marijuana is still a very new industry in Missouri, and for that reason, Easy Mountain operates out of a heavily secured building; an armed guard is also on the premises. However, Beine said that they don’t have any safety concerns.
“I don’t think we have any real security risks,” he said. “It’s just to ensure the safety of our guests, our patients and our employees.”
Paulson added that when people come to purchase medical marijuana products at Easy Mountain, he and Beine want them to have the best experience possible.
“We want to be a brand that really kind of stands out for what we’re willing to do for our patients,” he said. “Willing to help the patients, but also being a cool environment that our patients want to be in and feel comfortable being at. We want to be a dispensary that people feel that they are welcome at, like they feel like they belong here. And you can ask people who have been here just in the short three weeks that we have been open, and I think that we are doing a good job of that already.”