Which one do you want to go to?
You can’t own more than 3 pot shops, but these companies test the limits — and brag about it
I was told "Massachusetts, in short, had hoped to get legalization right, but out of the gate, that dream faces an existential threat, because “when the big boys and big money come in, it’s hard to compete. That’s the way it works,’’and Massachusetts is not the only state struggling to limit the dominance of large marijuana companies, in what seems like an open defiance of the spirit of rules designed to level the playing field."
The Globe is following marijuana regulators investigations over whether companies violated license limits and whether they are a bunch of racists, and that it is time to turn over a new leaf and educate people:
"The state granted a recreational marijuana license to a Brookline store Thursday, setting the stage for what town officials expect to be a mob scene when the outlet — the first within spitting distance of Boston — opens in a few weeks. New England Treatment Access already runs a medical marijuana dispensary at the location, a former bank branch at the busy corner of Washington and Boylston streets. But police and neighbors are bracing for an onslaught as NETA opens up to the much bigger retail market. “It’s already a very busy place as it is,” said Gladys Ruiz, owner of a nearby day care, Little Children Schoolhouse, who praised NETA for being a good neighbor since opening for medical sales in 2016. “I’m not worried about the opening day and week, even — I’m worried about what comes after.”
At least NETA had experience with crowd control.
Brookline recreational marijuana shop to open next Saturday
"Brookline recreational marijuana shop opening not the ‘apocalypse’ predicted" by Felicia Gans Globe Staff, March 23, 2019
BROOKLINE — Greater Boston’s first recreational marijuana shop opened in Brookline Village Saturday with all the expected fanfare but none of the traffic disasters town officials had feared.
Officials spent months preparing for hundreds — and even thousands — of customers to line up at New England Treatment Access, bringing the potential for clogged sidewalks, packed intersections, and few open parking spots.
Whether those issues will arise during the workweek has yet to be seen, but on Saturday morning, everything was orderly, even as hundreds raced to the store on its opening day.
“The predictions of an apocalypse are not coming true,” said Brookline Selectman Neil Wishinsky, who made the first purchase of marijuana products at NETA on Saturday.
NETA employees were handing out food and drinks to those in line, including coffee and mini-muffins.
Though most customers arrived close to the store’s opening, some came long before sunrise, eager to be among the first inside.
James Jenner drove from Salem and arrived around 5 a.m., waiting in his car as long as he could. About 6:15 a.m., he saw a man walking down the street carrying a folding chair. If Jenner wanted to be first, it was time to bundle up, and bundle up he did, first in his coat and Patriots winter hat, then with a gray NETA blanket given out to the first few customers in line.
“I didn’t think I was going to be No. 1,” said Jenner, 38, who has visited three other recreational shops across the state. “I’ve never been No. 1 in anything except my fiancée’s heart.”
Greg Berkel, who lives in Dorchester, got to Brookline around 8:30 a.m., easily found parking at a metered spot, and stood in line for about an hour. He said he just really wanted to be in the first wave of customers.
“It was day one. I wanted to be one of those people,” said Berkel, 45.
Throughout the morning, customers in the full-service line said they waited outside for about 45 minutes to an hour.
Instead of waiting in that line, the majority of customers utilized NETA’s Reserve Ahead program on the company’s website, which allows people to peruse the products and place orders ahead of time. A separate, expedited line was available for Reserve Ahead customers, and on Saturday morning, customers rarely waited more than a few minutes in that expedited line.
Medical patients have a designated parking lot across the street and do not have to wait in line with the adult-use customers.
Ahead of its opening, NETA had strongly encouraged people to take public transportation, given the limited parking in the area. Though many customers heeded that advice, the ones who drove also said they had no trouble finding parking spots.
Amanda Rositano, NETA’s director of operational compliance, said Saturday that she enjoyed seeing the customers move through the line quickly and happily, and that the store’s opening day was going exactly as planned.
“I think people are sometimes surprised to find out that these are responsible adults that are coming in to buy something that they have the legal right to now purchase,” she said. “It’s not any different than going to buy something else.”
Customers seemed pleasantly surprised Saturday morning by the speed of the line and the options available inside. And despite the cold, brisk winds, many people waiting Saturday took the opportunity to make new friends.
Evan Smith, 30, spent his time in line chatting with a woman who he joked was his new “best friend.” Smith lives near NETA and walked to the store.
“Having a location like this, especially in Brookline, too, which is really, really unexpected, I think it’s really cool,” he said.
Connor Cirillo, 23, also said he made friends in line Saturday and he enjoyed seeing the diverse group of people that had come to shop at NETA.
“It’s really not one cut of cloth. There are folks of all ages, backgrounds,” said Cirillo, who lives in the West End. “This is a very wide-covering product line that people enjoy, so it’s just interesting to see all the walks of life that are interested. It’s not just stoners. It’s not just that kind of crowd. It’s just functioning members of society that want to participate.”
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I recognized one face in the crowd:
"I can buy pot, legally, a mile from my house. Still, it feels a bit weird" by Margery Eagan Globe Columnist, March 21, 2019
I wanted legalization. I voted for it. Still, it’ll take some getting used to. Somehow, I never expected, a mile from home, that I’d be able to put down $50 for one-eighth ounce of marijuana and walk out with it, right past the detail cop, no different than if I were buying a nice Chianti to go with a Friday night lasagna.
Still, the marijuana stigma remains. Of numerous adults interviewed by the Globe in June about marijuana use, only two were willing to use their real names.
Likewise those I talked to. One mother of three children under age 10 said she and her husband hide their weekend toking because they don’t want the kids telling their classmates or teachers. Who knows how they’d react? Another mother who drinks alcohol with her twenty-something children said smoking weed with them was something else again, but a therapist said she and her husband have smoked for decades and began smoking with her college-age daughter at the daughter’s request. “It’s a fun intimacy,” she said.
Yet nobody was keen on coming out of the marijuana closet at work, and the older and the more traditional the job — teacher, health care — the more leery they were about shopping at the New England Treatment Access store without bags over their heads.
“Attitudes change slowly,” said one baby boomer who was ready to try some sweet, gooey edibles — as long as somebody else buys them. He predicts stores like this one, in the historic hearts of leafy suburbs, will nudge that change along. Meanwhile, he’s making a shopping list for his son-in-law, 27, and looks forward to a lilt in his step this spring.....
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Also see: Brookline recreational marijuana shop says lines are under control as most customers reserve ahead of time
A 14th store — Patriot Care Corp. in Greenfield — has received approval to open, but has not yet announced its opening date.
Related: Recreational marijuana shop in Greenfield receives OK from state to open
They started selling in April.
Getting excited yet?
"Marijuana treatment could act as ‘sexual enhancement’" by Jonathan Saltzman Globe Staff, March 17, 2019
Generating billions of dollars in sales since they hit the market in 1998, Viagra, Cialis, and other erectile dysfunction drugs have been a boon to many men, but there’s a “paucity of treatment options for women” who struggle to become aroused or to climax, said Dr. Harin Padma-Nathan, the 62-year-old former assistant professor of urology at the University of Southern California and Los Angeles urologist and specialist in sexual disorders who joined Manna Molecular Science in December as chief medical officer.
“The prevalence of sexual dysfunction is high in both genders, and this causes distress in both genders,” he said.
Sound crazy?
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There is research indicating that marijuana users have more frequent sex because they fuck like rabbits.
Another prediction not coming true:
"Windfall, they said. Why Massachusetts marijuana taxes are disappointing so far" by Naomi Martin Globe Staff, March 19, 2019
Government leaders throughout Massachusetts envisioned dollar signs when marijuana legalization passed. Taxes would help fund the subway, police, and schools, but because of the slow rollout of pot stores and their far-flung locations, tax revenues have been disappointing so far. The state projected it would reap $63 million in taxes by June 30, but had received only $5.9 million as of March 1.
Prepare for budget cuts later this year.
The projection assumed “a reasonable number” of stores would be open last July, Revenue Commissioner Christopher Harding said in 2017. Instead, the first shops opened in late November, four months later.
“The numbers are low, but it’s too early in the birthing of this particular industry to be able to actually calculate whether we’re on or off track for our revenues,” Administration and Finance Secretary Michael Heffernan said at a budget hearing this month.
At least he and his are doing all right (Baker $ilenced the media, too).
The underwhelming tax revenues have thrown into question the state’s projection of $133 million for fiscal year 2020, which starts July 1.
“You can’t get revenue flowing in if you don’t have stores open,” said Pat Oglesby, former chief tax counsel to the US Senate Finance Committee and now with the Center for New Revenue. “It’s extraordinarily difficult. . . . But at a certain point, it may be that patience is lost, and folks say, ‘We need to move faster — these rules are not working well at the municipal and state level.’ ”
The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, which licenses marijuana businesses only after they have been approved by towns or cities, said it was “comfortable” with its pace and priorities. Had it rushed the rollout, the commission said, there could have been “more serious costs” than uncollected tax revenues, such as easy access for children, diversion of products into the illicit market, and criminal groups infiltrating the industry.
“The commission has placed a premium on the build-out of a complete adult-use regulatory structure that supports public health and public safety,” a spokeswoman said, adding “the measured pace” ensured that stores passed inspections, sold lab-tested products, hired vetted workers, and tracked their products.
Whatever!
Industry analysts say that sales here have been inflated by the number of sole-purpose tourists who have flooded the first legalized pot shops on the East Coast.
On Monday evening, dozens of people — many from New Hampshire — waited in an hour-long line at Patriot Care, a new marijuana store that just opened in Lowell.
“It’s about time, for crying out loud,” said Jim Lampropulos, 67, a machinist from Nashua who said he has smoked pot for 51 years. He was excited for his first legal cannabis purchase, and to pay taxes on it — taxes, he noted, that “New Hampshire’s losing out on.”
Massachusetts imposes a 17 percent tax — a 6.25 percent sales tax plus a 10.75 percent excise tax — and local governments 3 percent, for a total of 20 percent. So far, the taxes that have been collected were put into several buckets: nearly $2 million into the state’s general fund that pays for salaries; $350,000 for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority; and nearly $300,000 for the School Modernization Fund.
Another $3.2 million went to the Marijuana Regulation Fund, which pays for the cannabis commission, pesticide regulation, the state’s social equity program, public health, police training, and substance abuse prevention.
Local governments in towns and cities where pot stores are located have collected $885,000 in taxes. They also will receive an annual fee of up to 3 percent of their stores’ revenues as part of their agreement to host the businesses. In Leicester, where one of the state’s first shops opened to massive traffic snarls, town leaders plan to spend the influx of cash on new police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and school equipment.
Policy makers may be tempted to raise cannabis taxes to fund better public services, but they must balance those needs with avoiding prices rising so high that consumers keep buying from their dealers. To maximize taxes, the government needs consumers to migrate to the legal market, said Andrew Livingston, director of economics and research at Vicente Sederberg, a cannabis law firm.
Some 75 percent of the pot sold in the state this year will be under the table, according to BDS Analytics, a cannabis market research firm. Several Boston-area marijuana consumers said last month that they would love to buy legal pot, but would wait until the shops could better compete with their dealers on price and convenience.
While bringing consumers out of the shadows is important, cannabis commission chairman Steven Hoffman has said going slow allows the state to work toward its legal mandate of ensuring participation in the industry by small businesses, minorities, women, and people who were disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs.
Pollock, the cannabis store CEO, agreed with the commission’s pace. He said the state doesn’t have enough marijuana to grow the industry too fast, and rushing could lead to a lack of inspections, which could enable bad actors. Pollock said that people upset with the slow process and the locations of stores should direct that frustration to their local officials, who have more power than the state in determining where the first stores open.
“The demand is certainly there, and the tax revenue will come,” Pollock said. “If it’s a couple months slower than anticipated, in the long run, I don’t think that’s a problem. Rushing the process would be a bigger problem.”
Pollock acknowledged, though, that Massachusetts’ sales would suffer if other states open their own stores. Maine and Vermont have legalized pot. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are considering legalization measures now.
“We’re getting a lot of media coming in from New York — that’s adding to the conversation,” Pollock said. “They’re seeing the tax dollars go into Massachusetts instead of New York.”
At least we are ahead of the curve on this one.
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"Bill aims to crack down on black market marijuana" by Naomi Martin Globe Staff, April 9, 2019
Two state lawmakers from Worcester want to create a task force of law enforcement, public health leaders, and regulators to crack down on unlicensed marijuana sellers.
Senator Michael Moore, a Democrat, and state Representative Hannah Kane, a Republican, will hold a news conference Wednesday at the State House about their joint bill, filed Monday, which aims to maximize tax revenues and reduce youth pot access. The underground cannabis economy “threatens the progress the Commonwealth has made in implementing the law that was approved by voters,” according to a news release.
OMFG!
What they did was far from what voters approved.
The task force would join officials from the Cannabis Control Commission, Massachusetts State Police, local law enforcement, the Department of Revenue, and the Department of Public Health. The group would receive investigative tips, share information on criminal investigations, refer leads to police and prosecutors, and focus resources on areas where illicit activity is “most prevalent.” The group would not be subject to open meetings.
Going to figure more police $tate out in a $moke-filled room.
The bill also proposes allowing the commissioner of revenue to impose civil fines on unlicensed businesses based on the estimated amount of unpaid taxes. The fines would be dedicated to police training, substance abuse prevention and intervention, and the commission’s social equity fund. The social equity fund will pay for mentorship, training, and assistance to help bring people from communities that were disproportionately affected by criminalization into the legal marketplace.
It's another money grab!
An estimated 75 percent of marijuana sales in Massachusetts will occur under the table this year, according to cannabis research firm BDS Analytics. Marijuana tax collections have been underwhelming so far.
Industry analysts blame the state’s slow rollout of legal stores in relatively far-flung locations, compared with other places that allowed stores to open near population hubs faster. Most cannabis consumers simply don’t have a legal place to buy that is as convenient or as cheap as the illicit sellers they’re used to, advocates say.
That is why most sales are still on the black market, as well as the comfortable familiarity with routine.
Cannabis Commissioner Britte McBride said Tuesday, “The task force is a common-sense idea. That type of [illegal] activity not only undermines people who are licensed, it undermines people who are in the pipeline doing their damnedest to get their stuff in order and trying to do this legally.”
The Commonwealth Dispensary Association, which represents medical marijuana retailers that spend heavily to comply with regulations, has advocated for a crackdown on unlicensed sellers, which undercut their businesses, but other groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council, argue that more cannabis criminalization would perpetuate racial disparities in policing.
Kamani Jefferson, president of the MRCC, said policy leaders who are serious about reducing the illicit market should focus on bringing unlicensed sellers who want to go legal into the regulated marketplace through outreach, education, training, and other programs. Before arresting more people, the state should give them a chance to join the industry, which is now too costly for many to do, he said.
“Most people want to build a career versus hide away from the police,” Jefferson said. “There needs to be a way to transition them into the legal market.”
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We were told they were going to be taking a hands off approach, but nope!
At least the tax revenue is rising like a wi$p of $moke:
"4/20 bump helped push Mass. recreational pot sales above $100 million" by Dan Adams Globe Staff, May 1, 2019
Total spending on recreational marijuana in Massachusetts since the debut of sales in November has topped $100 million, amid a consumer spending spree in the run-up to the traditional “4/20” stoner holiday.
That’s according to numbers from an “open data” platform launched last week by the Cannabis Control Commission, a large database showing everything from the hottest-selling marijuana products to the demographics of license-holders.
The platform shows that in the days before Saturday, April 20, Massachusetts residents seriously stocked up on cannabis.
Celebrants of 4/20 had apparently had enough, or just had plenty of leftovers, by Sunday, April 21, when sales dropped 36 percent, compared to the previous Sunday.
Total consumer spending on recreational marijuana in Massachusetts, where regulated sales debuted in late November, topped $100 million for the first time on April 26, and currently sits at $104 million.
Of course, analysts estimate that the vast majority of marijuana purchases — roughly 75 percent — are still taking place in the illicit market, thanks to the relative scarcity of regulated marijuana stores and the higher prices they charge.
Are the taxes included?
Another interesting takeaway from the numbers: Plain old flower (the cured buds of the cannabis plant, commonly combusted in a pipe) remains the most popular product among marijuana consumers.....
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Time to make a deposit:
"Easing banking rules could have a big effect on marijuana sellers — and make pot cheaper" by Dan Adams Globe Staff, April 29, 2019
New political momentum is gathering behind federal legislation aimed at freeing up banks and similar institutions to work with the marijuana industry, a change that would be likely to transform how business is conducted in the Massachusetts cannabis sector — and make pot cheaper for consumers.
Why?
Under a bill filed in the US Senate in mid-April by Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Republican Cory Gardner of Colorado, banks, credit unions, and insurance companies could not be sanctioned by financial regulators for providing services to state-licensed marijuana operators.
The measure, dubbed the Secure And Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, already boasts 20 senators as sponsors. An identical proposal has attracted broad support in the US House, where a key committee two weeks ago voted overwhelmingly — and on a bipartisan basis — to approve the idea. Even Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said lawmakers should move on the bill, which is cosponsored by US Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and has the backing of banking industry groups.
Those guys $ee money!
The federal prohibition on the drug keeps most banks on the sidelines of the fast-growing marijuana industry, but Brandon Pollock, chief executive of the Massachusetts marijuana company, Theory Wellness, said the explicit protections of the SAFE Banking Act would probably encourage many more financial institutions to get into the cannabis game, improving the cost, convenience, and choice of services available to companies like his.
“There could be a lot of ripple effects that would have huge benefits to us,” Pollock said.
One obvious benefit would be increased competition. Five years after the debut of recreational sales in Colorado, cannabis sellers there have just a handful of institutions to choose from — and several of those banks have long waiting lists. In Massachusetts, only BayCoast Bank in Swansea and GFA Federal Credit Union in Gardner openly serve the state’s recreational pot companies.
Financial institutions that do work with marijuana operations are typically smaller, have few branches, and offer only basic services — at a premium price. GFA, for example, charges each of its 14 cannabis clients about $5,500 a month for a checking account, plus fees on most transactions, while non-cannabis businesses pay under $100.
Isn't that price gouging illegal?
“It’s not a very competitive marketplace,” said David O’Brien, executive director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Business Association. “Every other type of business is able to bank within its region, and more often than not, within the same town. Cannabis should be treated like any other business.”
GFA chief executive Tina Sbrega explained that working with marijuana money while complying with onerous federal regulations is simply expensive: GFA must thoroughly vet every potential marijuana client to ensure the company is following state law and isn’t secretly controlled by another party, a process that can take four to six weeks. The credit union is also required to regularly file “suspicious activity reports” with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, about all its cannabis clients, and is subject to intensive audits, and GFA staffers manually monitor marijuana accounts and transactions to reconcile them with marijuana sales data from each store.
If only they sifted through other financial schemes that way, huh?
Then there’s the cash: While most cannabis stores accept debit cards, Pollock said about 60 percent of pot consumers still prefer the anonymity of paper money, which is expensive to transport and triggers a whole separate set of counting and security requirements.
“When I say we have our eyes on the money, I mean it literally,” Sbrega said. “Every single day, we’re validating every single deposit and outflow that comes into or out of the account to make sure it’s not suspicious.”
O’Brien, Pollock, and others are hopeful that the SAFE Banking Act would allow marijuana operators to more readily accept debit and credit cards, drastically slashing the amount of cash in the system and in turn reducing costs.
Another great hope of Pollock and others in the industry is that legislation would encourage banks to lend to marijuana firms, which today typically finance their growth by selling off equity or with very-high-interest private loans.
“Getting access to more conventional financing would let us grow much quicker, and that would lower the prices we offer to consumers, too,” Pollock said. “Marijuana prices in Massachusetts are high, in part, because marijuana businesses have such high borrowing costs.”
The advent of institutional lending could also help Massachusetts and other legal-marijuana jurisdictions that are struggling to boost ownership of marijuana licenses by minorities and other disenfranchised groups, whose communities were disproportionately targeted with arrests when the drug was illegal.
“We’re implementing these social-equity programs and throwing licenses at people, but if there’s no access to capital, you’re not really setting them up for success,” said Shanita Penny, president of the Minority Cannabis Business Association.
Penny praised language in the SAFE Banking Act that would mandate data collection around diversity and inclusion in the industry, calling it a necessary safeguard in light of the financial industry’s history of racist practices such as redlining.
She also argued that institutional lending at fair interest rates would help small businesses better weather unexpected downturns — and help minority entrepreneurs avoid potentially predatory loans and management contracts being offered by some larger operators amid the current dearth of capital.
Employees of marijuana firms, too, could benefit from banking-law changes. Some workers have had their accounts shuttered or mortgage applications denied because their paychecks come from a cannabis company.
You need to talk to the vet.
Seven months after taking a job with medical marijuana firm Garden Remedies in April 2016, Mike Climo said his longtime bank, Pentucket Bank in Haverhill, called to say it was closing his account after an audit revealed his employer.
“I was with them for 24 years,” Climo said. “I pleaded my case, saying, ‘Hey this is a new industry, you guys should be getting prepared for it.’ But that conversation was quite short.”
Climo eventually won a reprieve after talking with Pentucket’s president, but the bank eventually closed his account anyway after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded Obama-era legal protections for marijuana businesses in early 2017.
“It was very disruptive — I had to set up new online banking, auto-pay for my bills, everything,” Climo recalled. “I’d been with this bank forever but they had no loyalty at all. I was like, ‘You guys used my money for 24 years, and this is what I get?’ I never even bounced a check with them.”
Pentucket Bank declined to comment.
They ended the relationship.
Climo said he hopes for banking reforms, as he’s anxious his new bank, which he declined to name, might also show him the door. Under the SAFE Banking Act, he figures, even institutions that don’t work directly with marijuana companies might be less likely to kick a customer who works for one to the curb.
Penny, for one, is optimistic about the chances for reform. Sensing the momentum around the issue, her group moved up by six months its annual policy conference, originally scheduled for the fall, and recently conducted a successful lobbying blitz.
“It addresses something that everybody in the industry needs, from consumers to employees to owners,” she said of the banking legislation. “It’s absolutely now or never.”
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Related: Sunday Globe Special: Sloane Exception
It's now dead with few limits.
"Spotlight For sale in the pot industry: political influence" by Andrew Ryan, Beth Healy, Dan Adams, Nicole Dungca, Todd Wallack and editor Patricia Wen of The Boston Globe Spotlight Team. May 1, 2019
Nothing happens quickly in Massachusetts politics, or in the business of pot, for that matter, but lobbyist Frank Perullo’s diligence — and carefully cultivated relationships — paid off.
Marijuana may be the hot, new retail business in town, but it largely plays by the old political rules. The competition for new licenses all over the state has been a bonanza for some in the influence game, none more so than Frank Perullo, a college dropout who found work at the secretary of state’s office, [and] now co-owns Boston-based Novus Group, which claims to be “one of the nation’s leading cannabis consulting firms.”
He helped recruit two prominent political clients — former state public safety secretary Andrea Cabral and former Boston city councilor Tito Jackson — to run pot companies, further expanding his reach, and now Perullo is a pot executive himself, part owner of an enterprise that says it has raised nearly $100 million to build a business in Massachusetts and other states, but Perullo’s hustle and influence are pushing the boundaries in a new industry where often-overmatched regulators are supposed to prevent a few players from dominating. He stands at the forefront of a cadre of politically connected lawyers, consultants, and lobbyists whose work to promote their well-capitalized clients is having an unintended side effect: undermining the state’s promise to create an egalitarian marijuana industry in which small operators could thrive, a Spotlight Team review found.
The 2017 law that legalized recreational marijuana tried to make room for the little guy by limiting the number of pot shops a company could own or control. The new law also directly encourages pot shop proposals from black and Latino entrepreneurs whose community members were often unfairly targeted for arrest when pot was illegal, but, so far, winning a license to sell pot in Massachusetts often seems to be determined by whom you know — or if you can afford to pay a lobbyist or consultant who knows people.
At least 12 of the 17 recreational pot stores open as of May 1 hired lobbyists or former politicians. The Boston Globe Spotlight Team obtained, through public records requests, thousands of e-mails relating to pot shop proposals in a host of communities. The fingerprints of influence peddlers — consultants, lawyers, lobbyists — are all over them.
This should be no surprise; it would be a surprise, in fact, if the influence business had taken a pass on the lucrative potential of pot, but the flood of former government officials coming into the pot business — including former governor and current presidential candidate William F. Weld, former state House speaker Thomas M. Finneran, former state senator Andrea F. Nuciforo Jr., former Boston city councilor Michael P. Ross and even former Boston police superintendent-in-chief Daniel Linskey — is striking, and the lobbying payments can be eye-popping. For example, New England Treatment Access, which has opened pot stores in Brookline and Northampton, has paid $530,000 since 2014 for a lobbying effort that included work by former state senator Robert A. Bernstein and former representative James E. Vallee. Pot companies have paid Perullo and Novus Group at least $760,500.
Looks like his campaign was snuffed out before it even began.
State lobbying records do not track marijuana as an industry, so it’s difficult to calculate the total growth of the pot influence-peddling business, but even among lobbyists, Perullo stands out. The man is everywhere, the engine behind a web of entities and investors deployed in a host of deals.
Perullo and investor Abner Kurtin are proposing three pot stores in Greater Boston and a growing facility in Athol through their company Ascend Massachusetts, where Perullo’s former client Cabral is chief executive. Kurtin also runs a private equity fund with Greg Thomaier, who is backing yet another pot company, Union Twist — where former state representative Marie St. Fleur, another Perullo client, is an executive.
Operators of a third company connected to Perullo and Kurtin want to open yet another shop next to the Athol cultivation site. An employee of Kurtin’s investment fund was listed on the shop’s corporate records and Perullo and Kurtin would be the store’s landlord.
If all are approved, that could give them influence over at least seven pot shops. The state’s three-shop legal limit has clearly not been an impediment so far.
Perullo, in an interview with the Globe, said it was premature to raise questions about Ascend and license limits. Pot is a new industry with a relatively small pool of capital, he said, so overlap is to be expected among the early investors. State regulators will scrutinize everything, including relationships between companies, he said.
“It will be reviewed,” Perullo said. “And if it needs to be modified, we’re happy to modify it,” but, for some local officials, the labyrinthine networks of ownership and investment raise concerns about whether they are getting the full story about who’s in charge.
“There are corporations within corporations within corporations. If you track them back, they all go back to the same small number of people,” explained Rebecca J. Bialecki, chair of Athol’s Board of Selectmen.
Frank Perullo, she said, “is one of those people.”
Perullo said his firm simply provides expertise that helps guide clients through an often murky licensing process.
??????
All that time rewriting the damn thing and it's murky???
Despite the proliferation of upstart marijuana companies, many of the same faces — the same lawyers, consultants, and lobbyists — show up again and again at hearings for proposed stores. At the Greenfield Zoning Board in February, attorney Phil Silverman from the national pot law firm Vicente Sederberg quipped that he had been “to 50 communities recently doing the same thing.”
Or take Jay A. Youmans, a former Department of Public Health official who describes himself as lead author of the state’s medical marijuana regulations. Youmans jumped into influence peddling so quickly that his last paycheck from the state arrived after he’d already registered as a lobbyist for his new firm, Smith, Costello & Crawford.
Youmans said he abided by the state’s cooling-off period, which required him to wait a year before lobbying his former DPH colleagues, but that still left him plenty of other work he could do. In his first 20 months since leaving state government, Youmans has received $322,000 from pot clients for his lobbying services on Beacon Hill alone, a figure that doesn’t include payments for his work at the local level in Boston, Cambridge, Nantucket, and beyond.
Lobbyists with a background in government like Youmans’s bring expertise that hard-pressed local officials sometimes lean on. When Cambridge City Councilor Craig Kelley had a question about zoning in 2018, the chief executive of Revolutionary Clinics quickly turned to his lobbyist.
In an interview, Youmans said he is not trying to tilt the playing field in favor of the powerful, noting that his firm represents an economic empowerment marijuana applicant pro bono and helped organize a job fair to get more people of color involved in the industry.
“We’re a part of the solution,” Youmans said.
Still, some worry that lobbyists will enable large corporations to define the new industry.
Since when do they care?!!
“I like Frank,” said Athol Town Manager Shaun A. Suhoski. “When he tells me something’s going to be done, it gets done.”
Perullo’s income from marijuana is difficult to tally, and Perullo helped conceal the sprawling ambitions of his client. When Greenfield Mayor William F. Martin asked about the state cap on licenses, Perullo told him only about the pot stores being pursued by one of Sea Hunter’s affiliates.....
So he lied to us?
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Why is the Globe crapping on his personal $ucce$$ $tory.
Related:
"Frustrated marijuana advocates and entrepreneurs rallied against “Big Cannabis” at the State House Wednesday, saying the state has broken its promise to boost smaller pot companies. Speakers at the protest, most of them small-scale growers and manufacturers, outlined a variety of forces — from restrictions imposed by local officials to proposed regulations that would freeze them out of the delivery market — that they believe are stifling competition and tilting the recreational industry in favor of large, wealthy operators....."
Yeah, “there’s a handful of companies that own all the supply,” and among other demands, the protesters said they “don’t want out-of-state corporate businesses here running our cannabis industry.”
Also see:
China Cashes In on the Cannabis Boom
Feds say illegal pot operation funded with Chinese money
Diplomat sickened in China pledges to donate his brain
That's what happens when you smoke.
"Signs of ritual pot smoking found in ancient Chinese graves" by Christina Larson Associated Press , June 12, 2019
WASHINGTON — Archeologists have unearthed the earliest direct evidence of people smoking marijuana from a 2,500-year-old graveyard in western China.
In a complex of tombs in the Pamir Mountains — a region near the borders of modern China, Pakistan, and Tajikistan — excavators found 10 wooden bowls and several stones containing burnt residue of the cannabis plant. Scientists believe heated stones were used to burn the marijuana, and people then inhaled the smoke as part of a burial ritual.
‘‘It’s the earliest strong evidence of people getting high’’ on marijuana, said Mark Merlin, a botanist at the University of Hawaii. He was not involved in the research, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
Ancient drug use has long intrigued scholars. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of people in Central Asia smoking cannabis around 440 BC. In the past century, archeologists have found cannabis seeds and plants in tombs across Central Asia’s highlands, including in southern Siberia, and elsewhere in western China’s Xinjiang region, but since cannabis has other uses — seeds are pressed for oil and fibers used for cloth — the presence of seeds alone doesn’t confirm drug use.
Using new techniques for chemical analysis, the study’s scientists examined residue and found evidence of THC, the compound that gives pot its high. Most wild cannabis plants have low THC levels, so researchers believe the people who built the graves selected plants with higher amounts.
‘‘During funeral rites, the smokers may have hoped to communicate with the spirit world — or with the people they were burying,’’ said coauthor Yimin Yang of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
Excavation of the site, called Jirzankal Cemetery, began in 2013.
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The stuff was so old and dry it had lost its potency.
