The Green Lady Dispensary on Nantucket island sells cannabis products, but that’s not all it does. The shop also grows and processes its own marijuana flower, cooks or bakes all the weed-infused candy and other edibles sold on the shelves, and tests everything for safety and chemical content. In fact, everything the Green Lady sells is made completely in-house – something very uncommon for a dispensary.
Being single-origin might be a business model for other dispensaries in Massachusetts, but that’s not why Green Lady owner Nicole Campbell does everything herself. She has no choice. Campbell’s problem is Nantucket Sound, the roughly 30-mile-long, 25-mile-wide stretch of ocean between mainland Massachusetts and Nantucket. Some of that water is federal territory, and since cannabis is federally illegal, no cannabis products can cross it.
“I would love the opportunity where I could buy wholesale from other companies, at least to supplement what we’re doing. But because we’re on an island, we can’t do that,” Campbell explained.
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Like a growing number of U.S. states, Massachusetts has legalized marijuana for adult use. Over 60 percent of Americans favor legalizing marijuana – roughly the same percentage of voters on Nantucket who voted “yes” on legalization. But since cannabis products cannot cross federal water or travel through federal airspace to reach the island, the production, testing and sale of cannabis on the island must be completely self-contained.
Nantucket’s situation is just one example of the unexpected complications of what is arguably the largest and most widespread contradiction between state and federal law since the Civil War. States are increasingly moving toward legalizing all forms of cannabis, including marijuana. A majority of Americans either have or soon will have access to legal marijuana – for medical use in 33 states, and for “adult” or recreational use in 11 states and the District of Columbia. The legal and recreational markets in these states are already grossing billions of dollars, despite federal prohibition.
At the federal level, however, little has changed. Marijuana remains illegal, classified by the Controlled Substances Act alongside heroin and LSD as a dangerous “Schedule I” drug with a high potential for abuse and little medical benefit. And while state legalization has allowed the cannabis industry to grow – it generated over $10 billion in sales last year and employs more than 211,000 people nationwide — state laws are increasingly unable to overcome hurdles created for the cannabis industry by the federal government.
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