Ron Strider
Well-Known Member
Heka Health, a medical marijuana provider with plans for dispensaries here, in West Springfield and in Pittsfield, plans to start growing cannabis in September or October and make it available to patients in February 2018.
The company plans to grow the marijuana in Westfield in a 40,000-square-foot indoor facility being built inside a renovated warehouse at 98 Sgt. T.M. Dion Way, near the Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport, said Heka Health CEO Mark A. Dupuis.
The months-long delay between the start of growing and the availability of the product is meant to give Heka a chance to grow the marijuana, process it and make some of it into foods like chocolates preferred by some medical marijuana patients.
"The law requires you to be vertically integrated," Dupuis said. "That means you have to grow, process and make what you sell."
A dispensary can acquire product from another grower only when it cannot meet patient needs, according to state law. And even then, 70 percent of the marijuana sold must be grown by the dispensary and just 30 percent may come from another dispenser-grower.
The Heka Health locations in Pittsfield, on Dalton Avenue, and in West Springfield, on Interstate Drive, will only be dispensaries, where patients can buy their marijuana or marijuana-bearing products, he said.
One of the steps toward getting a final license is to have a state-approved lab test the products to a make sure they contain advertised concentrations of active marijuana chemicals like THC, Dupuis said.
He plans to hire as many as 140 people at Heka Health for both the dispensaries, grow operation and processing.
Heka Health plans a $10 million investment in growing and processing facilities and in the three dispensaries, one that should yield the three host communities $500,000 to $1.5 million a year each in host community and infrastructure improvement fees, Dupuis said.
"This is real money," Dupuis said. "This is all good for the community."
Dupuis is also the landlord of 98 Sgt. T.M. Dion Way and leader of a group of businessmen who have been trying to get the marijuana operation off the ground since 2015.
The planned opening is more than a year after Heka Health's planned opening date, which was pushed back by the regulatory process. But Dupuis isn't blaming the state, saying regulators with the Department of Public Health are being thorough.
"They are really concerned that this is done professionally and and right," he said.
Westfield Mayor Brian Sullivan said he's toured the construction site on Sgt. T.M. Dion Way and he's impressed.
"And I'm excited for the revenues we will get as a city," Sullivan said.
Back in 2015 when the process started, the state was only talking with entities looking to provide marijuana to the ill for treatment of pain, nausea and other complaints.
Massachusetts' first medical marijuana dispensary opened in Salem in 2015. New England Treatment Access, the region's first and as of now only medical marijuana facility, opened later that same year in Northampton.
Voters in Massachusetts voted in November to legalize recreational marijuana and regulate it like alcohol.
Gov. Charlie Baker last week signed a compromise recreational marijuana bill. Whether Heka Health would leap into that business from medical marijuana depends on the detail of the law and the regulatory structure that grows from it, Dupuis said.
"We would be happy to be able to provide recreational cannabis," he said.
Both Sullivan and West Springfield Mayor William C. Reichelt said prior to the bill's signing that they would need to see what comes off Baker's desk and what the state's recreational marijuana rules are before they support or oppose Heka Health's expansion into recreational marijuana.
Sullivan said he, as a private citizen, voted no in the November referendum. But he balances his skepticism with a desire to see a local business grow and do well.
Heka Health's deal with each of the three cities calls for the cities to each get 3 percent of the gross sales of medical marijuana as a local impact fee.
Westfield gets an additional 1 percent of the gross, for a total of 4 percent, with the additional 1 percent going toward infrastructure improvements.
The first use for the money will be to repave the badly rutted Sgt. T.M. Dion Way and then, once that project is done, to fund other road work, Sullivan said.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Heka Health, Westfield medical marijuana facility, prepping to grow plants, business | masslive.com
Author: Jim Kinney
Contact: Contact Us - MassLive Media Solutions
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Website: Massachusetts Local News, Breaking News, Sports and Weather - MassLive.com
The company plans to grow the marijuana in Westfield in a 40,000-square-foot indoor facility being built inside a renovated warehouse at 98 Sgt. T.M. Dion Way, near the Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport, said Heka Health CEO Mark A. Dupuis.
The months-long delay between the start of growing and the availability of the product is meant to give Heka a chance to grow the marijuana, process it and make some of it into foods like chocolates preferred by some medical marijuana patients.
"The law requires you to be vertically integrated," Dupuis said. "That means you have to grow, process and make what you sell."
A dispensary can acquire product from another grower only when it cannot meet patient needs, according to state law. And even then, 70 percent of the marijuana sold must be grown by the dispensary and just 30 percent may come from another dispenser-grower.
The Heka Health locations in Pittsfield, on Dalton Avenue, and in West Springfield, on Interstate Drive, will only be dispensaries, where patients can buy their marijuana or marijuana-bearing products, he said.
One of the steps toward getting a final license is to have a state-approved lab test the products to a make sure they contain advertised concentrations of active marijuana chemicals like THC, Dupuis said.
He plans to hire as many as 140 people at Heka Health for both the dispensaries, grow operation and processing.
Heka Health plans a $10 million investment in growing and processing facilities and in the three dispensaries, one that should yield the three host communities $500,000 to $1.5 million a year each in host community and infrastructure improvement fees, Dupuis said.
"This is real money," Dupuis said. "This is all good for the community."
Dupuis is also the landlord of 98 Sgt. T.M. Dion Way and leader of a group of businessmen who have been trying to get the marijuana operation off the ground since 2015.
The planned opening is more than a year after Heka Health's planned opening date, which was pushed back by the regulatory process. But Dupuis isn't blaming the state, saying regulators with the Department of Public Health are being thorough.
"They are really concerned that this is done professionally and and right," he said.
Westfield Mayor Brian Sullivan said he's toured the construction site on Sgt. T.M. Dion Way and he's impressed.
"And I'm excited for the revenues we will get as a city," Sullivan said.
Back in 2015 when the process started, the state was only talking with entities looking to provide marijuana to the ill for treatment of pain, nausea and other complaints.
Massachusetts' first medical marijuana dispensary opened in Salem in 2015. New England Treatment Access, the region's first and as of now only medical marijuana facility, opened later that same year in Northampton.
Voters in Massachusetts voted in November to legalize recreational marijuana and regulate it like alcohol.
Gov. Charlie Baker last week signed a compromise recreational marijuana bill. Whether Heka Health would leap into that business from medical marijuana depends on the detail of the law and the regulatory structure that grows from it, Dupuis said.
"We would be happy to be able to provide recreational cannabis," he said.
Both Sullivan and West Springfield Mayor William C. Reichelt said prior to the bill's signing that they would need to see what comes off Baker's desk and what the state's recreational marijuana rules are before they support or oppose Heka Health's expansion into recreational marijuana.
Sullivan said he, as a private citizen, voted no in the November referendum. But he balances his skepticism with a desire to see a local business grow and do well.
Heka Health's deal with each of the three cities calls for the cities to each get 3 percent of the gross sales of medical marijuana as a local impact fee.
Westfield gets an additional 1 percent of the gross, for a total of 4 percent, with the additional 1 percent going toward infrastructure improvements.
The first use for the money will be to repave the badly rutted Sgt. T.M. Dion Way and then, once that project is done, to fund other road work, Sullivan said.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Heka Health, Westfield medical marijuana facility, prepping to grow plants, business | masslive.com
Author: Jim Kinney
Contact: Contact Us - MassLive Media Solutions
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Website: Massachusetts Local News, Breaking News, Sports and Weather - MassLive.com
