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Massachusetts May Be the First State to Repeal Recreational Weed

It’s not only weed at stake. The whole legal apparatus that supports social equity marijuana businesses would disappear if ballot question 8 passes.

Sean Berte and Armani White were arrested for weed, then became cannabis entrepreneurs through Massachusetts’s social equity program.

Mike Marinaro was a passenger in his friend’s car in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 2008 when a cop ran the vehicle’s plates. Police officers then pulled Marinaro out of the car, searched it, and found weed. He took the rap.

Even though the charges against him were eventually dropped, his troubles were only starting. His infuriated parents kicked him out, leaving him homeless. He was arrested several more times for public intoxication “because it was like, well, you know, I guess I was arrested once. What does it matter?”

But for all the difficulty it caused him, that first marijuana-related arrest also made him eligible years later for a fast track to a commercial weed license through a Massachusetts program that offers resources to entrepreneurs who had run afoul of the pre-legalization law.

Marinaro was accepted into the program in 2020. And though he has raised $3.6 million to build a bespoke cannabis growing facility, he needs to raise more funds to get his business across the finish line. But now, as Massachusetts voters are tasked with a ballot question that would repeal the legalization of recreational cannabis, finding investors has become tough.

“It made it impossible,” Marinaro said. “I have three or four people right now that are like, ‘Yeah, we’re not touching it until after [ballot question] 8 passes.’”

Massachusetts question 8 would reverse the legalization of recreational marijuana, which passed by ballot question in 2016. Massachusetts would be the first state in the country to repeal recreational weed.

But it’s not only weed that’s at stake. The whole legal apparatus that supports business owners like Marinaro would disappear if the question passed.

The state’s social equity program is designed to offer free training and support for those involved in the illicit market before 2016 who were in some way “impacted by the War on Drugs” to enter the legal marijuana industry.

Massachusetts grants licenses for marijuana delivery solely to social equity applicants that own a majority stake of their business. Effectively, they have the state’s entire market to themselves.

For Devin Alexander,........

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