Worcester Business Journal

70 Worcester Business Journal | October 28, 2024 | wbjournal.com were able to open the handful of medical dispensaries needed millions of dollars Happy Anniversary, Worcester Business Journal! Congratulations on your outstanding achievement of Happy Anniversary, Worcester Business Journal! Congratulations on your outstanding achievement of 35 years of service to our community. We wish you many more years of continued success. 35 years of service to our community. We wish you many more years of continued success. Wealth Management for All Seasons grimesco.com Founded in 1985, Grimes & Company is an independent wealth management firm currently headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts. What began as a small family business has now blossomed to include a team of over 50 employees. As the firm has grown, Grimes has made it a priority to never lose the culture, feel, and service model of a family run company. disproportionate impact on low-income communities and resulted in thousands of nonviolent people being thrown in prison. e state's social equity efforts helped Bertold and his wife, Lisa Mauriello, to open Paper Crane Cannabis, an outdoor cannabis farm in Hubbardston. "I think – besides having our kids – being able to start Paper Crane and operate in the cannabis industry in what has been a family business for me for about 65 years, is the best thing to happen to us," Bertold said. "It's nice to be able to bring that knowledge and that history and not have to hide it, and to be able to have this amazing company that people love and respect." Major talking points of the opposition to legalization – like the potential for skyrocketing teen use – have largely failed to come to fruition, as a 2023 study published in medical journal Clinical erapeutics found Massachusetts youth were no more likely to use marijuana aer legalization. Instead, a whole new set of unexpected challenges have emerged, many of them stemming back to the strict regulations governing the industry and the Cannabis Control Commission, the Worcester- and a team of lawyers to get to that point, according to Downing, creating an oligopoly with little room for small businesses or entrepreneurs of color. Continued from previous page Melissa Kenton, then an employee at Framingham's MCR Labs, shows patrons at the 2023 Harvest Cup in Worcester what cannabis flower looks like under a microscope. PHOTO | EDD COTE Opponents of further reform urged for a pause in 2016, but Massachusetts kept blazing ahead, as 53.6 percent of voters cast a ballot in favor of legalizing marijuana like alcohol. is move kicked off the creation of an industry, leading to more than $6 billion in sales, with Worcester County now being home to more than 80 dispensaries that have received at least a provisional license to operate, according to state data. For Will Luzier, the campaign manager for the legalization campaign in 2016, the piles of cash created by the industry aren't surprising. "We anticipated during the campaign that once the market matured, there would be a billion in yearly sales," Luzier said. "I think that's been eclipsed, and so it's been successful. Certainly, they've returned a lot of money to the commonwealth and the cities and towns through taxes and fees." Prior states to legalize banned people who had cannabis convictions from participating in the now-legal trade. Massachusetts took a different approach, creating pathways for people like Bertold to join this new industry as a means for righting the wrongs committed during the quixotic war on weed, which had a 35th Anniversary WBJ

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