Missouri’s cannabis gray market: Donation model thrives at local fairs

By Aminah Jenkins, Missouri News Network
The first vendors arrived at the Common Ground Fair on an October morning just before sunrise. They set up folding tables along gravel pathways, displayed jars of carefully labeled flowers, homemade edibles and concentrates.
But no one here is selling cannabis. Instead, they’re “gifting” it in exchange for donations: a practice that exists in a legal gray area created by a single clause in Missouri’s Constitution.
Adults 21 and older may gift up to 3 ounces of cannabis to another adult “without consideration.” It’s this phrase in the constitution that home growers and caregivers have interpreted as their legal pathway to operate.
Jessie Oxford of Kindway started the Common Ground Fair after medical marijuana was legalized in 2018 to bring patients and caregivers together. As a licensed caregiver herself, she said events like the fair are important to provide options for patients.
“It’s that connection and community that should be established in order for medical and recreational programs to establish healthy boundaries,” she said.
In exchange for a monetary donation, growers gift cannabis products to patrons. Signs displayed around the Common Ground Fair remind visitors that they’re receiving gifts and not making purchases.
“You donate to help me further my cause to do research and growing cannabis (for) genetic research,” said one St. Louis grower who goes by Cosmic Gardeners. “You give me a donation, and, in turn, I give you a gift for the donation.”
Oxford acknowledged the ambiguity.
“I’m a normal citizen and small business owner trying to go with my interpretation of the public regulations,” she said.

Personal growing restrictions
Cannabis was first legalized for medicinal use in 2018 when Missouri voters approved a ballot initiative, and later amended the state constitution to legalize it recreationally in 2022. Supporters argued in part that sales tax revenue would support state and local economies, and that keeping the tax rate lower than surrounding areas would prevent black markets.
Missouri allows three types of noncommercial cultivation: patient cultivation, caregiver cultivation and personal cultivation. Residents are required to apply for one of these licenses in order to grow. As of late 2025, the state had 2,507 active caregivers and 2,130 personal cultivators.
Shayna Arndt is the director for patient and application services for Missouri’s Division of Cannabis Regulation. She said the state works to ensure both growers and consumers are aware of how much they can possess.
“We really focus on making sure that you are not over possession, because that could come with other legal implications,” Arndt said.
Cultivators and caregivers are required to follow what the division refers to as the “six, six and six rule.” Growers can have up to six flowering marijuana plants, six nonflowering plants that are 14 inches tall or more and six nonflowering plants under 14 inches tall. The structure accounts for different growing phases so cultivators can maintain a continuous harvest cycle.
Cultivators and caregivers must also store their products in an enclosed, locked facility. But outside of plant amounts and storage requirements, there are few restrictions for home growers.
Unlike commercial cultivators, personal growers aren’t required to test their cannabis or track it through a state system. The only explicit rule is that they cannot sell their product.

The legality of gifting
The key question is whether a donation-for-gift exchange truly qualifies as “without consideration.” Dan Viets is a criminal defense attorney who advocated for legalizing cannabis long before the ballot initiatives. He said the interpretation that drives events like the Common Ground Fair is understandable, but carries risk.
“It’s foreseeable that somebody might think they can require a donation to gift marijuana,” Viets said. “But whether that’s truly a gift is up to the courts of appeals to decide.”
The division is aware of events like the Common Ground Fair. The agency’s investigation team reviews reports of home grower festivals case by case, providing education or enforcement when necessary.
Arndt said some of the events operate “outside of the regulated market,” meaning they don’t overlap with legal sales through Missouri’s state-licensed dispensaries.
But when asked whether the state considers donation-based exchanges to be sales, Arndt said the division cannot definitively weigh in.
“It is sort of a two-pronged situation where our rules just say the cannabis cannot be directly sold, and that it has to be noncommercial,” she said. “I don’t know that we could really weigh in on that portion of it the way the regulation is written.”
The constitution’s gifting clause means the exchange can’t involve payment that resembles a sale. Caregivers can be reimbursed for time and overhead costs, but there are no rules specifying how much they can receive or how they must track those funds.
That regulatory gray area can create a false sense of security, with some caregivers assuming enforcement will be limited to the largest, most obvious violations. Viets warned that the state now has expendable resources — in part because about 20,000 fewer marijuana cases are being prosecuted since legalization — making that assumption a risky one.
“There may indeed be larger fish,” he said. “But it is foolish for anyone to rely on that notion. That is not a legal defense.”

Why home growers participate
For many participants, the appeal of obtaining marijuana outside the state dispensary system is affordability and freedom from dispensary regulations.
Justin Griffin, a personal grower who also accepts gifts from other cultivators, said the options at events like the Common Ground Fair are more affordable than dispensaries.
“The market controls the price here,” he said. “You’ll notice that people start out selling weed a little higher, and then as the day goes through, all the prices will be kind of the same.”
Another grower named Justin said prices are the primary motivation for many people, especially medical marijuana patients. “Not everybody can go to a dispensary and spend $80 to $100 on their medicine when they could take that and grow three or four times as much as what they could get at the dispensary,” he said.
The lack of testing requirements and state tracking gives home growers freedom to experiment with different strains tailored to individual patients’ needs.
“You can find the (cannabis) that would work for you versus going to a dispensary and asking a budtender if something will help with back pain, and they just hand you a jar of weed,” Justin said.
Prior to legalization, Missouri had some of the strictest penalties for cannabis possession. Cannabis was partially decriminalized in 2014, eliminating jail time for first-time offenders possessing up to 10 grams of cannabis. First-time offenders were instead punishable as a class D misdemeanor and carried a fine of up to $1,000.
Griffin said he avoids dispensaries not only because of cannabis prohibition’s legacy, but because he does not want to contribute tax revenue to a system that once criminalized it.
“They didn’t just ban it,” he said of past marijuana laws. “They ruined people’s lives over it.”

The state’s concerns
Arndt emphasized that the division’s primary concern is safety. “Marijuana products purchased outside of licensed dispensaries may not have been tested and are possibly unsafe for consumption,” she said.
The department can conduct inspections of licensed cultivators’ spaces to ensure they comply with growing regulations.
Arndt also said the state is not aware of any adverse reactions to cannabis from home growers, but said cases may not have been reported.
Despite the legal uncertainty, growers say they’re operating with good intentions.
“There’s no underlying factor other than me trying to grow my medicine the absolute best I can,” grower Cosmic Gardeners said.

Harshawn Ratanpal contributed to this story.