Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | January 7, 2019 | Worcester Business Journal 11 A PLAN DESIGN WITH PERFECT BALANCE CLIENT: MUNICIPALITY This town was struggling with rising and uncertain pension costs due to decreasing asset returns and longer life expectancies. We delivered a solu on that helped them manage their expenses with balance and ease. Get the full story at hhconsultants.com/success Put our knowledgeable professionals to work for your business. We offer a full range of comprehensive actuarial, investment advisory and re rement plan consul ng services designed to iden fy, achieve and exceed each client's specific need. Each client's situa on is different and results may vary from those presented here W Declined to answer - 0.4% CCC Commissioner Shaleen Title has advocated for programs to help communities harmed by the War on Drugs. are setting benchmarks to give a certain portion of licenses to minorities. However, Worcester – with its large minority population – has not set such benchmarks. Excluded from the industry Bradshaw said countless of his friends and family members have been arrested or incarcerated for drug crimes. Some had been promising ath- letes with their dreams of a scholar- ship taken away when they were arrested. "I saw early on the disproportionate arrest rates and law enforcement when it came to white and black," Bradshaw said. As the state's medical marijuana industry got the greenlight from voters in 2012 and recreational four years later, Bradshaw saw people of color being excluded from that industry. Of the two medical marijuana dis- pensaries licensed to operate in Worcester, neither is owned by a minority. "I didn't want to see that trend in recreational," Bradshaw said. Despite entrepreneurs like Bradshaw, the lack of minorities in the industry appears to be holding true for recre- ational shops in Worcester as well. Nine retail recreational marijuana stores have either entered into negotia- tions with the city or have already received some city and state approvals. Of those nine, just one – Community Growers Partnership – is an economic empowerment applicant, which are those who have been dispro- portionately impacted by marijuana enforcement. City spokeswoman Mike Vigneaux said Worcester is consider- ing entering into negotiations with the other four economic empowerment applicants, including New DIA, for the remaining six retail licenses in Worcester. Beth Waterfall, executive director at marijuana industry advocate Elevate Northeast, said cannabis businesses need a boatload of cash and access to capital in their early phases. A location must be secured before applications can be sent to local boards and the Cannabis Control Commission, so companies could be paying rent for a space not open for sales for more than a year. Elevate Northeast works with young cannabis firms to introduce them to investors and provide technical training to help the state's newest industry flourish. The cannabis industry, she said, isn't much different than other industries other than its newness and federal ille- gality. For people of color and women, raising money to start a business has always been a challenge. "They don't have that social capital, nevermind that financial capital," she said. War on Drugs casualties Disadvantaged groups looking to get their foot in the door of the newly legal marijuana industry have been, in some way, impacted by the War on Drugs. According to a 2016 report from the ACLU, the arrest rate for marijuana possession in 2014 was 3.3 times high- er for black people than it was for white people. For sales, it was 7.1 times higher. African Americans made up 41 per- cent of sales arrests and 24 percent of possession arrests in Massachusetts in 2014, despite making up 8 percent of the state's overall population. The CCC is rolling out program- ming aimed at making the industry fair, equitable and accessible, includ- ing a social equity program, imple- mented in December, meant to give those affected by marijuana enforce- ment a chance to partake legally. Applicants will receive professional training, technical services and men- toring for those facing system barriers, including access to capital. Those eligible include people who have have lived in an area of dispro- portionate impact for at least five of the last 10 years and have an income not exceeding 400 percent of the fed- eral poverty level; were convicted of a drug crime and lived in the state for at least a year; or are married to or a child of someone with a past drug conviction. The CCC identified 29 such com- munities of disproportionate impact, including Worcester, Fitchburg, Spencer and Southbridge in Central Massachusetts. Commissioner Shaleen Title has been front and center in the CCC's efforts to increase access to the indus- try, saying the ownership and work- force of the cannabis industry should reflect the demographic breakdown of the Massachusetts population. Communities disproportionately harmed by prohibition, however, should disproportionately benefit from legalization, Title said. No Worcester benchmarks Although not yet outlined by the CCC, Title said she wants to develop additional types of marijuana business licenses with lower capital requirements tailored for groups who are excluded from other types of business models. "The commission's decisions to move forward with a pilot program for social consumption created collabora- tively with municipalities, as well as allowing only microbusinesses to offer home delivery, are specific examples we are currently exploring," she said. Bradshaw lauded Title and the CCC for taking on that challenge, but levied criticism at Worcester – New England's second largest city – for being quick to award licenses to large operators and not taking steps to encourage diversity in the city's cannabis industry when 42 percent of its residents are minorities. Cities like Boston and Cambridge have set quotas for how many canna- bis firms must be minority owned. Worcester officials have included diversity on a list of criterion when considering which companies with which to negotiate a host community agreement, but no benchmark is set. So far, Worcester is home to a hand- ful of large companies backed by large investment firms, including Mayflower Medicinals and The Botanist, the latter of which has former U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld on its board of directors. "It's very disheartening," Bradshaw said. "That's why I think cities like Boston are really stepping up to the plate and setting a quota. They aren't just saying they care about diversity, equality and equity. They're holding themselves accountable to it." Employee gender breakdown More than two out of three workers for Massachusetts marijuana businesses are men. This includes all 1,619 execu- tives, board members, managers, em- ployees or volunteers in Massachusetts. Male 67.4% Fenale 32.1% Gender defined by applicant - 0.1% Source: Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission

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