68 Worcester Business Journal | October 28, 2024 | wbjournal.com
35th Anniversary
WBJ
BY ERIC CASEY
WBJ Staff Writer
I
t may not have been fully legalized until 2016, but marijuana was big busi-
ness in Central Massachusetts long before that. Despite the fact Massachu-
setts was the first state to ban marijuana use in the early 1910s, a century of
prohibition did little to assuage the appetite for the substance.
Instead, an underground market flourished.
One member of this illicit market was Boey Bertold, whose family's participation
in the marijuana cultivation business dates back generations, much like the moon-
shiners of yesteryear. In 2007, he was transporting 15 bales of marijuana in Natick
when federal, state and local authorities teamed up to arrest him, the result of a
six-month investigation. e incident was chronicled by longtime MetroWest Daily
News crime reporter Norman Miller with the headline "Pot bust nets 300 pounds."
It would be one of dozens of similar
headlines Miller and others would write as
a result of the continuous game of whack-
a-mole authorities were playing against
growers and traffickers, accomplishing
little to stem the flow of cannabis
throughout the commonwealth.
Much of that enforcement would be
racially biased; an ACLU study in 2016
found Black people were only 8 percent
of the population of Massachusetts, but
accounted for 24 percent of marijuana
possession arrests and 41 percent of sales
arrests, despite similar usage rates to
whites.
For Bertold, who is white, his run-in
with the law meant the possibility of 15
years in prison. He ended up with a three-
year sentence.
Out of the weeds
From prohibition to
profits, the last 35
years have seen big
changes in cannabis
