After a year of legal cannabis, Massachusetts is taking stock. Numbers released by the state’s Department of Revenue and its Cannabis Control Commission summed up the first phase of the regulated cannabis industry, announcing that the state’s 33 dispensaries had raked in a total of nearly $400 million in sales, and employed 6,700 individuals.
Massachusetts has largely dodged issues with illegal dispensaries such as those in California, even as a large share of in-state cannabis sales take place under illegal circumstances. It also faced its fair share of other challenges, among them ensuring social equity for people of color in the cannabis industry. The state has previously stated that a paltry 3.5 percent of the business entities that had filed with the state are owned by people of color.
Sales figures started out of the gate strong. The sole two dispensaries that were initially licensed in Northampton and Leicester rang up $2 million in customer purchases in the first five days they were open, and saw lines so long to get into the retail locations that the neighbors sometimes complained about the influx of car traffic.
The state is now home to 33 dispensaries, which have sold $393.7 million worth of cannabis products, generating $19 million in sales tax, $32.8 million in excise tax, and $9.1 in local option tax.
No Smooth Sailing in the Commonwealth
The cannabis industry was roiled by allegations that Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia II had been accepting bribes from marijuana entrepreneurs in exchange for allowing them to open up their businesses in his city. Legally admissible types of bribery have also been a concern, with many communities asking marijuana companies for payments via “host community agreements.”
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