Jacob Redmond
Well-Known Member
A convention focused on medical marijuana drew several thousand people to downtown Boston over the weekend, as Massachusetts gears up for a likely ballot fight over legalizing the substance for recreational use.
Fifty national and local vendors hawked their wares, which included pipes, lights aimed at helping marijuana grow, and a $150 machine that can make edibles infused with the substance, along with salves.
The convention, held inside the Castle at Park Plaza, also highlighted an industry in its infancy in the Bay State, as some young men in T-shirts laid out their pipes on the table and not much else. They stood alongside older men in suits promoting medical marijuana dispensaries and software meant to help manage dispensaries' business.
Representatives from a South Boston-based insurance company, hoping to pick up business in the emerging market, sat around the corner.
Among the people in suits: Employees of New England Treatment Access (NETA), which is seeking to open medical marijuana to patients in Brookline and Northampton, had a table at the convention. Their cultivation and processing facility is in Franklin.
Stacked on the table were slick brochures outlining the NETA facilities, including "seed-to-sale tracking," "exhaustive testing," "responsible packaging," and the promise of more than 100 high definition security cameras.
Norton Arbelaez, a spokesman for NETA, said the company is reaching out to potential patients, letting them know they can pre-register with NETA if they have a card from the Department of Public Health.
"We're here representing the regulated industry," he said while walking the floor of the convention on Saturday.
Smoking was not allowed inside the convention hall.
Massachusetts voters legalized medical marijuana in 2012, and the state has been slow to get the program up and running. Voters could end up deciding whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2016 if supporters clear a number of hurdles. The proposal is opposed by critics who say marijuana is a gateway drug to harder substances.
The state Department of Public Health has been charged with implementing the medical marijuana program, and so far has approved two medical marijuana dispensaries for opening in Salem and Brockton.
Arbelaez is hoping his Brookline location will be the first in the Boston area. He plans to open it by the end of the year, providing topical applications, capsules, salves and liquid extracts known as tinctures.
He hopes to open the Northampton location by the end of the month, becoming the first dispensary in Western Massachusetts.
"Effectively, Western Mass. has been forced into the black market" due to the lack of a dispensary, he said.
BioTrackTHC was located around the corner from the NETA table. Greg Welch, a national account executive with the company, said they're seeking to provide business management software, with a monthly licensing fee ranging from $200 to $400 a month.
The information will be stored on a server and not on a "cloud" on the Internet, he said.
"Nobody is going to get Ashley Madisoned," he said, a reference to the adultery website that was hacked earlier this year. The names of millions of Ashley Madison users were then leaked online.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: As marijuana fight looms, Boston cannabis convention draws several thousand | masslive.com
Author: Gintautas Dumcius
Contact: Email Author
Photo Credit: The Associated Press
Website: Massachusetts Local News, Breaking News, Sports and Weather - MassLive.com
Fifty national and local vendors hawked their wares, which included pipes, lights aimed at helping marijuana grow, and a $150 machine that can make edibles infused with the substance, along with salves.
The convention, held inside the Castle at Park Plaza, also highlighted an industry in its infancy in the Bay State, as some young men in T-shirts laid out their pipes on the table and not much else. They stood alongside older men in suits promoting medical marijuana dispensaries and software meant to help manage dispensaries' business.
Representatives from a South Boston-based insurance company, hoping to pick up business in the emerging market, sat around the corner.
Among the people in suits: Employees of New England Treatment Access (NETA), which is seeking to open medical marijuana to patients in Brookline and Northampton, had a table at the convention. Their cultivation and processing facility is in Franklin.
Stacked on the table were slick brochures outlining the NETA facilities, including "seed-to-sale tracking," "exhaustive testing," "responsible packaging," and the promise of more than 100 high definition security cameras.
Norton Arbelaez, a spokesman for NETA, said the company is reaching out to potential patients, letting them know they can pre-register with NETA if they have a card from the Department of Public Health.
"We're here representing the regulated industry," he said while walking the floor of the convention on Saturday.
Smoking was not allowed inside the convention hall.
Massachusetts voters legalized medical marijuana in 2012, and the state has been slow to get the program up and running. Voters could end up deciding whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2016 if supporters clear a number of hurdles. The proposal is opposed by critics who say marijuana is a gateway drug to harder substances.
The state Department of Public Health has been charged with implementing the medical marijuana program, and so far has approved two medical marijuana dispensaries for opening in Salem and Brockton.
Arbelaez is hoping his Brookline location will be the first in the Boston area. He plans to open it by the end of the year, providing topical applications, capsules, salves and liquid extracts known as tinctures.
He hopes to open the Northampton location by the end of the month, becoming the first dispensary in Western Massachusetts.
"Effectively, Western Mass. has been forced into the black market" due to the lack of a dispensary, he said.
BioTrackTHC was located around the corner from the NETA table. Greg Welch, a national account executive with the company, said they're seeking to provide business management software, with a monthly licensing fee ranging from $200 to $400 a month.
The information will be stored on a server and not on a "cloud" on the Internet, he said.
"Nobody is going to get Ashley Madisoned," he said, a reference to the adultery website that was hacked earlier this year. The names of millions of Ashley Madison users were then leaked online.
News Moderator: Jacob Redmond 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: As marijuana fight looms, Boston cannabis convention draws several thousand | masslive.com
Author: Gintautas Dumcius
Contact: Email Author
Photo Credit: The Associated Press
Website: Massachusetts Local News, Breaking News, Sports and Weather - MassLive.com
