There’s a new green monster in town: Legal recreational marijuana sales are about to hit the East Coast for the first time -- a possible tipping point for the surging, multi-billion dollar weed industry.
Cannabis becomes legal to sell to those 21 and over at licensed retail stores on July 1 across Massachusetts, the seventh state to create a legal recreational market for a drug still seen as illegal by the federal government. It’s expected to be big business in the state that is home to the Red Sox and Fenway’s famous green wall -- not to mention legions of college students at Harvard and elsewhere.
And while Massachusetts has been slow to issue the licenses necessary to operate the stores, which may lead to early supply shortages from Boston to Worcester, the state’s market is expected to reach $325 million this year and surge to $1 billion by 2020, according to New Frontier Data, a cannabis research firm. Additionally, the money generated from taxing cannabis might prompt some East Coast neighbors to take the plunge into legalization.
New Jersey’s governor vowed to make recreational pot legal during his campaign, and there are also signs of a thaw in New York -- a pair of states with big populations that will watching closely as Massachusetts joins Colorado, California and a handful other West Coast states in legalizing recreational cannabis sales.