Cambridge signs cannabis host community agreements with seven economic empowerment applicants, Marblehead Police hire more white men, Boston media fails again on MPAA coverage
California gets sued over high cannabis taxes
Thank you for voting for The Young Jurks as “Best Cannabis Podcast” at the NECANN Awards! Wow!
First up, kicking off with the city of Cambridge who recently signed seven cannabis host community agreements and extended exclusivity for new economic empowerment recreational applicants for another year. Some quotes from our interview with Cambridge City Councilor Quinton Zondervan.
Next, we’ll take a look at the Marblehead Police Department, under a cloud of scandal, lacking gender and racial diversity, and the local Marblehead newspaper editorial that swallowed a lot of boot to pretend that women aren’t a majority of residents in the town.
Also in this one: WBUR Radio carries water for the Mass Patients group reps that routinely sell out patients for dispensary and doctor office sponsorships. To close, commentary on a lawsuit filed against the state of California over the excessive state cannabis tax.
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The City of Cambridge has extended a cannabis economic empowerment licensing priority, a moratorium against existing medical dispensaries from opening immediately for recreational sales, giving new economic empowerment applicants exclusivity for a final third year.
Cambridge City Councilor Quinton Zondervan speaking to us on our live-streaming show and podcast, The Young Jurks;
“The good news is that we did hear that seven (economic empowerment) applicants in Cambridge have signed host community agreements with the city.”
Zondervan also offered advice to the Cambridge-based, medical dispensary chain, Revolutionary Clinics, the organization that strongly opposed the moratorium with losing court filings and astroturf campaigns.
“There’s plenty of opportunities to participate. They (Revolutionary Clinics) are part of our (Cambridge) law too, our law says once this moratorium expires they are allowed to operate, I hope they will embrace that, embrace the equity and the justice that we’re trying to do, and really become partners instead of opponents.”
Listen/watch the Zondervan interview with The Young Jurks on Itunes, Spotify, or youtube
Marblehead Police Department addresses the lack of diversity by hiring two more white men.
MPD has a gender and racial problem, their force is almost exclusively white male, and the two newest hires are naturally white males with institutional family ties, one of them being the former police chief’s son, so we were a bit perplexed by a Marblehead Reporter editorial, “Diversity should be fostered’ which sounds good if you only read the title but then closed with, “Maybe take a break from demanding diversity” and a bunch of other silliness throughout.
In a town that is 54% women, the Marblehead Reporter should maybe listen to some women.
It’s good for business, perhaps they want to sell some subscriptions?
We found two informed Marblehead women that the newspaper should be listening to.
Referencing the civil service list which did include high ranking female candidates, the list that Marblehead PD hires from and which has often been cited as the problem, Laurie Barham, a Marblehead resident points out, “Note that the female veteran resident who is 4th (on the civil service list) is ranked significantly higher than the former police chief’s son who was ranked 9th and is not a veteran.”
Marblehead attorney Anne Stevenson points out the numbers and recent scandals of concern, “The MPD’s officers are all indeed white men (31 including the 2 white men rubber-stamped in this week by the Board of Selectmen) and one woman. My concern here is that by omitting significant recent scandals and lawsuits against the town which originate in MPD, the editors of the Marblehead Reporter are glossing over the harm MPD discriminatory policies are having on this town. For instance, Officer Chris Gallo has been placed on leave at least 4 times-most recently after a female victim of a violent crime alleged that Gallo assaulted her and called her a “poor bitch.” And let’s not forget the Swastika incident where nine officers failed to report that Officer Tufts scratched a swastika into Officer Dimare’s car, a scandal which in turn Officer Gallo used as cover and a decoy to save his job. Then the hiring of the Winthrop Police Chief had just lost a sex discrimination lawsuit to the tune of $2.3 million. If the editors of the Marblehead Reporter have confused a long tradition of MPD perpetuating discrimination against women and BIPOC with the “glory days” of the MPD, we are all in deep shit. Discrimination against women based on sex isn’t just morally corrupt, it poses a real threat to public safety because at least half the people who live in this town are women. But of course, this is Marblehead where nearly every woman can probably tell you a story about a time when they experienced discrimination against them based on sex, but almost no man can identify another sexist man.”
Stevenson asks, “What is MPD doing to recruit, hire and promote a more diverse pool of candidates? Nothing. What are the consequences? There are none. They rig the game against women and BIPOC through various restrictive and neglectful rules and laws to the extent that women and BIPOC don’t even apply for MPD jobs here-and then pat themselves on the back with these incestuous new hires (who are all white men).”
Stevenson closes with criticism for the newspaper editorial, ”We have union lawsuits pending against the town now alleging grossly incompetent labor practices, and the editors of the Reporter respond with a cowardly faceless editorial claiming “nothing to see here folks…keep it moving.”
Speaking of media fluff jobs, WBUR with a nauseating “Joint Dreams: How an unlikely friendship reshaped medical marijuana laws in Massachusetts” on “activists” Jeremiah MacKinnon and Frank Shaw, two of the most vocal supporters of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, the org best known for selling-out patients to their sponsors which are dispensary and medical doctors offices.
Last year, Shaw testified at the State House against a veterans bill that would expand disabled veterans access to medical cannabis. A patient advocate against expanding medical access to disabled vets? Yes. Why? Follow the money. Joining him in that testimony was an MPAA sponsor who would most definitely lose business at the medical cannabis recommendation company that they own. Shaw, his group, the medical doctor, do not disclose their conflicts when testifying.
April 2017, I reported The MPAA dry-snitching on caregivers and traditional delivery services to the Globe and the DPH which effectively decreased patient access. See a pattern here yet? While the MPAA collected money from legal dispensaries and medical cannabis doctor offices.
In July 2019, Dan Adams, Boston Globe reported, the same MPAA patient advocates had rented themselves out to big cannabis in Cambridge, “To prove the point, the dispensaries and, um, “allied” advocacy groups bused in dozens of supporters wearing shirts with the word “PATIENT” emblazoned on the front to Thursday’s hearing on the dueling proposals. One after another, they testified that the two-year delay would be unfair to the dispensaries and made them fear losing access to needed medicine. Some appeared to be dispensary workers, or said they were “affiliated” with the dispensaries.”
Most never disclosed their financial interests.
Just this month, Revolutionary Clinics the big cannabis dispensary in Cambridge disclosed that they donate $1000 a month to the MPAA. That answers our long-running question. How much does it cost to rent the patients group? $1000 a month is all it costs.
Maybe the patients should start up a collection hat to get their patient group to actually represent the patients? One can dream.
We can also dream that MPAA and their lackeys will ever face a tough question from the big Boston media about their lucrative, intentional conflicts of interest. Changed the law for who to benefit? For their sponsors. Report that story WBUR. We dare you.
And finally this week, there’s the eye-opening, LA Weekly’s “Catalyst takes California to court over cannabis tax rates” which smells familiar in Massachusetts, excessive State taxation of legal cannabis propping up the unregulated market.
Elliot Lewis, CEO of Catalyst Cannabis Co. as reported by LA Weekly, “I want to be clear – our goal is to outline a problem that the state has created by failing to work with the cannabis industry on fair taxes, The cannabis industry has the biggest potential for job growth and good-paying jobs with tons of upward mobility since the tech boom.”
Unfortunately, in both states, it’s being held down by exorbitant taxation and over-regulation, both for smaller industry players, just to keep the lights on, and for consumers who are often economically pushed to gamble on dangerous synthetic products and various knock-off products from the street.
What’s different from California to Massachusetts is that some shady Golden State operators have found a way to pay for a license and taxes while diverting/selling their product to the non-legal market. As far as we know that hasn’t happened in Massachusetts yet.
Perhaps the most interesting part is that the state of California has an economic incentive not to turn off this illegal re-distribution, because their tax cut is immense.
Which begs the big question, why not just reduce cannabis taxes and start to take on the much larger market? That would make too much sense and bring into too much tax revenue. Is anybody in government ever going to count the stacks they are giving up?