Massachusetts legal marijuana industry faces a reckoning – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

The legal marijuana industry in Massachusetts is showing signs of maturing.

In five years since the first recreational cannabis dispensary in the state opened in Northampton in 2018, gross sales of non-medical marijuana in Massachusetts hit $4 billion. In just the first five months of this year gross sales totaled $600 million.

But prices have plummeted. An ounce of marijuana flower sells for $171, according to the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. As recently as two years ago, the price was $400 an ounce.

Competition has grown, with hundreds of retail marijuana stores now open in Massachusetts. With the exception of New Hampshire, all the states that border Massachusetts now have legal marijuana businesses.

Last week, Trulieve, a Florida-based cannabis company, citing competitive pressures, announced it will exit the Massachusetts market. In a press release, the company stated it planned to close retail stores in Northampton, Worcester, and Framingham by the end of this month and shut down a large production facility in Holyoke by year’s end.

“I’ve been calling this the year of reckoning for the cannabis industry and I guess I was a little too correct on that,” said Aaron Vega, Director of Planning and Economic Development in Holyoke.

Almost immediately after voters in 2016 legalized recreational marijuana, Holyoke rolled out the red carpet to the industry, touting its hundreds of thousands of square feet of vacant mills…