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February 9, 2023 On the Record | Q&A

Growing Opportunity: Cannabis Chamber advocates for state’s budding industry

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Adam Wood, president and founder of the CT Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, speaks at an event.
By Liese Klein

With $1 million in sales in its first four days and $2 million in its first week, Connecticut’s recreational cannabis industry looks set to make its mark on the state’s economy.

Marijuana products made their debut on Jan. 10 at seven licensed outlets, with more set to open statewide in coming months. Locally, medical marijuana dispensaries in New Haven and Branford launched recreational sales on the start date.

Networking and advocating for the fledgling industry before lawmakers and regulators are among the goals of the new Connecticut Cannabis Chamber of Commerce, set up in 2022 as state agencies tasked with enacting legalization moved toward retail sales.

More than 50 state businesses in the areas of cannabis sales, cultivation and business services are now part of the chamber, headed by Adam Wood and based in Rocky Hill.

The new industry’s chief concerns are taxation, advertising and regulations around real estate and financial transactions. Other concerns include the details of social equity programs, which aim to ensure that cannabis profits help communities hit hardest by historic drug-enforcement policies, Wood said.

New Haven Biz recently spoke to Wood about the CT Cannabis Chamber of Commerce and the launch of recreational cannabis sales in Connecticut.

How did the chamber get started?

Basically, I was very involved with the advocacy to promote legalization and saw a real need because a number of existing chambers in the state were opposed to legalization — some of their members had compliance issues or workplace regulation issues, etc.

I saw an opportunity to be a voice for this new industry to try to help these new entrepreneurs and business owners navigate through the system and through various different state agencies and processes and regulation.

My co-founders are Deborah Caviness, a co-founder of the Southern CT Black Chamber of Commerce, and Daniel Glissman, a partner at (law firm) MacDermid, Reynolds & Glissman P.C.

Dan is a very accomplished attorney and has been doing a lot of work in the cannabis industry. Deborah has an enormous amount of experience in terms of the minority contracting and chamber worlds.

What kinds of businesses are part of the chamber?

The cannabis industry includes medical providers, cultivators, retailers, transportation and manufacturing, and we have welcomed all of those businesses under our umbrella.

There have also been a number of affiliated businesses that are interested in having access to the new industry. Those include everything from architects to accountants to law firms and marketing companies. So we welcome many different professions to our chamber.

But primarily, we’re here to serve the new entrants to the cannabis industry here in Connecticut.

Why does the cannabis industry in Connecticut need a chamber?

It is one of the most heavily regulated industries, and any industry that has a lot of regulation and is new can benefit from advocacy.

There’s also a public education component to it. Because the industry is so new and it has so many different components that are complex due to regulation, I think a chamber is something that can be very helpful.

The other thing I would say is that many of these businesses are new. Any new business needs help and support. We can help with linking new members with financing and lending institutions, such as our state’s credit unions.

We also connect these businesses to each other. It’s important that these new entrants are talking to each other and learning from each other because they have common problems and are finding common solutions.

They’re all struggling and fighting through zoning issues and a lot of the regulatory issues around obtaining licenses and making payments through the state system.

What are the chamber’s top priorities right now?

There are a number of top priorities including clarifying some of the regulatory issues, and some legislative issues are out there as well. Those involve anything from banking and financing to the process of licensing in and of itself.

The Department of Consumer Protection has been a great partner to this new industry and they’re very helpful and trying to get ahead of a lot of these issues.

A few of the legislative issues include advertising clarification. There are certain advertising restrictions right now that are very challenging for the industry.

Another one of the big issues is taxation — because cannabis is a (restricted) substance federally, the state doesn’t currently allow you to take the same tax deductions for employees and expenses that it allows for other businesses. That’s definitely something that’s a top priority for us, allowing cannabis businesses to have the same deductions.

Another issue is clarity on whether cannabis sales could occur at events or concerts and what that would look like. Many of these businesses are also opening their doors in urban environments, inside old industrial buildings, with concerns about how you can ensure a safe and healthy product.

I think the real challenge is going to be bringing these new social equity licensees to market as quickly as possible to get the industry fully operational in the state, and to move from this initial stage to a more competitive marketplace.

How does Connecticut’s rollout of recreational cannabis compare to neighboring states, in your opinion?

Every state is different — I think we were lucky in a sense to learn from Massachusetts going first.

Some of the lessons we learned were related to social equity, and Connecticut has tried to do a number of things to address social equity concerns like a low-interest loan program for cannabis businesses funded by licensing fees.

The other thing we’ve learned from Massachusetts is about the number of locations. We’re opening 10 locations in the first months of recreational sales — eight more locations than Massachusetts when they first opened.

At that point they were the only ones selling cannabis on this side of the Mississippi legally, so the whole world converged on them in one or two days.

Years from now, there’ll be a great comparative analysis, but right now, it’s still a laboratory and we’re learning as we go.

But I think Connecticut really did try to learn from its neighbors and learn from other successful models, whether that be in public safety or regulation or taxation.

What are your long-term goals for the chamber and the cannabis industry in the state?

We want to keep growing every year, and it’s our mandate to provide value for each of our members. That includes the things I mentioned, like connecting folks with financing and banking and helping people navigate the regulatory environment in our state.

Tomorrow, it could include something else — the whole industry could change in an instant if federal laws change. So I think each year is going to be a little different.

I think the industry is going to grow and mature and learn as it grows. We are trying to evolve as the industry does. And we want to continue to grow and expand and make sure that this industry has a unified voice in our state and commands the respect that it deserves.

It’s a legal business that’s providing enormous benefit to the state and to the municipalities that it exists in.

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