More than a year after legalizing recreational marijuana, Massachusetts begins cannabis retail licensing process today. The state Cannabis Control Commission will be accepting applications for cannabis business licenses in anticipation of legal retail sales later this year. Massachusetts voters legalized recreational pot in 2016.
Activists and regulators alike are enthusiastic about the opening of the permit process. Lester Grinspoon is a former professor of psychiatry at Harvard. He has been a leader in the struggle for legal cannabis in Massachusetts since the 1970s. And at 89 years old, he wasn’t sure he’d be around to see it.
“I speculated this could happen, but I never dreamed that I would live to see it. It certainly is gratifying,” Grinspoon told the Boston Globe.
The progress also pleased Steve Hoffman, the chairman of the cannabis commission.
“It’s an exciting step. It’s starting to become real,” he said.
State Taking Applications In Three Phases
The Cannabis Control Commission will be accepting applications for cannabis business permits in three phases. The first phase includes existing medical marijuana dispensaries and companies known as “economic empowerment applicants.” These are businesses who employ, benefit, or are owned by members of communities disproportionally affected by the War on Drugs.
Jim Borghesani is a spokesman for Regulate Mass, an activist group working to have cannabis regulated like alcohol in Massachusetts. He told local media the state is giving these companies priority in an attempt to address and compensate for past inequities in enforcement.
“A lot of these are urban areas where people were adversely impacted by prohibition because of the disproportionate number of arrests for people of color compared with people who are Caucasian,” Borghesani said.
The commission will begin accepting applications for the