Mainers love their cannabis, and the numbers don’t lie.

Cannabis sales are breaking records year after year, with more stores, manufacturing facilities and cultivation sites to come. Last year, our state’s medical cannabis market brought in more than $305 million, while recreational sales hit $200 million.

There is much more to cannabis than “getting high” or “serving potheads,” an outdated term. The impact of Maine’s cannabis industry can be measured in many different ways.

Like any new highly regulated industry, there have been fits and starts in adopting licensing for medical and recreational cannabis use. Over the decades, the marketplace has sorted out winners and losers in an economic survival of the fittest. As abandoned cultivation and retail facilities become increasingly common, many are left wondering whether the cannabis industry’s growth in Maine is more boondoggle than boon.

Wherever you stand, one thing is clear: The cannabis industry is responsible for developing technology and expertise that will fundamentally improve agriculture for future generations.

In 2013, I was leading a successful HVAC&R company in Maine. One day, a client asked me to come by his new place of employment and help with indoor climate control issues. The facility turned out to be a large indoor cultivation facility growing, you guessed it, cannabis. I had seen many other agricultural facilities of all types, crops and sophistications, but I had never seen a fully enclosed facility of this magnitude. Its problems were significant but not insurmountable.

When I looked up the HVAC industry’s technical archives and resources, there was little to no scientific information available about “controlled environment agriculture” at this facility’s scale. Thankfully, we were able to help the client. New prospects soon started calling. In those first months of servicing the cannabis industry, the response was a mixed bag of positive and negative – and the stigma associated with cannabis became all too clear.

As we took on new clients, several of our employees refused to enter cultivation facilities, citing moral reasons. One asked: “Dude, how could you jeopardize our 30-year reputation by servicing the potheads?”

The question weighed heavily on me.

A few weeks later, I met with two esteemed colleagues from Colorado. When I mentioned the sense of moral dilemma regarding cannabis, one responded: “Think of the cannabis industry as the rapid proving ground for new technology and know-how that will forever transform agriculture.”

And he was right. He still is. Now is the time to consider the potential for the cannabis industry’s best practices to address many of our agricultural issues, in Maine and elsewhere.

Traditional agriculture is in peril. Among other factors, climate change has heightened the unpredictability of outdoor farming. Consumers are increasingly concerned about pesticide use, with much of our fruit and produce coming from countries with questionable certifications and credentials.

Then there’s the access to fruit and produce, which is not guaranteed. According to the Department of Agriculture, about 10% of U.S. households experience food insecurity. This number more than doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the trend sadly continues unabated. Children, minority communities and low-income households are hit hardest.

America is home to more than 6,500 food deserts, by one estimate, places where people have limited access to healthy, nutritious food.

Therefore, agricultural reform is a top priority. This brings us back to controlled environment agriculture farming, a model the cannabis industry has pioneered and is currently one of our most important potential solutions to the agriculture problem. Using ever-increasing technology and know-how, today’s crops can be grown successfully indoors – free of pathogens and contaminants due to heavily filtered air, as well as precise control over temperature, lighting, fertigation, carbon dioxide augmentation and genetics propagation. Whereas the outside air is necessary for greenhouse cultivation, ventilation is often impractical to clean in the volumes required at such scale, even at the smallest farms.

Controlled environment agriculture, on the other hand, relies on innovative approaches to agriculture. LED lighting offers a fully tunable spectrum and intensity, so heat generation and spectral affinity are easier to control. Water treatment has also been refined, while fertigation techniques such as hydroponics optimize the indoor growing environment. In 2024, even indoor farming in a basement is cost-effective and productive.

Mainers can thank the cannabis industry for revolutionizing farming. Maybe “pothead” will become society’s new term for growing food in plant pots.

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