It's been about a year since recreational marijuana sales started here in Connecticut. Sales started at about $5 million in the month of January, and as of November, that number tripled to more than $15 million.
Medical marijuana sales went up about 20% in the same time period from $8 million to a little more than $10 million as of November.
So who is benefiting? And are the protections the state put in place working?
NBC Connecticut's Mike Hydeck spoke with Ginne-Rae Clay, the executive director of the Social Equity Council. She was approved by the governor to try to set up the system, monitor the businesses and make sure social equity was in place.
Get Connecticut local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Connecticut newsletters.
Mike Hydeck: So assess the first year, we're almost at 12 months as of January, which is next month. How's it going?
Ginne-Rae Clay: So it's going well, I think. I actually just did an interview with the state of Maryland who's asking for our best practices. So I think we're doing well. We have had an opportunity to go through one year, one year of a lottery, one year of reinvesting back into the communities that have been disproportionately impacted. And we've learned some things, you know, we've been listening to the applicants, to the social equity supply chain on some of the things that were difficult, some barriers that were in place, because you put these things together, and you think it makes all kinds of sense. And so we did just update the criteria for social equity applicants in anticipation of another lottery in 2024. So some things that we actually asked for, we found we didn't need. They didn't provide any value to verify that a social equity applicant actually qualified. So those are some of the things that we're taking off the table. We're looking at some things related to the ownership and control of the companies that will benefit the social equity.
Mike Hydeck: So let me interrupt you real quick, because there's so many things I want to ask about this. When you talk about reinvesting in the community, which was part of the equation from the beginning, how do you do that? What do you reinvest? Is it after school programs? Is it programs for drug abuse? Where does the money go? How does it get distributed?
Face the Facts
Face the Facts with NBC Connecticut goes beyond the headlines, asking newsmakers the tough questions, giving an in-depth analysis of the big stories.
Ginne-Rae Clay: So we did a pilot program in June of this year, and we had $6 million that we put into community. So some of the larger communities, we put a million dollars each. So we did Stamford, we did Bridgeport, we did Waterbury, New Haven and Hartford, and the New London area. So the money was spent primarily on what what the council believed at the time to be the most immediate needs of the community. And that were programs.
Mike Hydeck: And that can be anything, it doesn't have to be related to drug abuse, or just anything that helps the community.
Ginne-Rae Clay: That helps the community, but we focused on children. So after school programs, before school programs, programs that help them, you know, be busy, that gets them off the street. You know our kids are dying, they're stealing cars because they're bored. So we took our money, and we put that into the communities. And we actually let the communities decide where the monies were going to go. So we selected grant makers who were local to those municipalities. And we asked them to use their system to administer our funds. And as a part of that criteria, and as a part of the awarding of funds, they set up community grant application reviewers, and those folks we're looking at, right, but there are people who are from the community who know the programs and know the programs that work. And so they were able to make recommendations for those programs to get continued funding or increased funding to enhance the work that they're doing.
Mike Hydeck: One of the things that in the beginning also, were concerned with the Social Equity Council and why it was set up, big hedge fund money's gonna come in and control the whole market. That was the concern, and we wanted to make sure communities that were impacted could have a say, local entrepreneurs could have a part of the market. Has that turned out the way you thought it would?
Ginne-Rae Clay: It has. So we just finished a series of community conversations. And so those conversations were, again, with the community, they were with social equity applicants, they were with residents, they with people who have been disproportionately impacted. And we often do roundtables with the social equity, so we call them, supply chain, the folks who have been approved, who are moving forward to getting licenses and who will be opening up businesses or whoever already opened up businesses. So as you know, you can't just borrow money.
Mike Hydeck: I was going to say, the barrier to entry was pretty high in the beginning, right? It was a million dollars, something like that.
Ginne-Rae Clay: It was $3 million for a cultivator and then it kind of went to trickle down to some of the other licenses.
Mike Hydeck: So that's got to be hard for a regular mom, husband and wife who want to start a business. That's no small hurdle, right? Will that change moving forward or is that staying the same?
Ginne-Rae Clay: I don't have a lot of information about the fees, that is the Department of Consumer Protection. They set that and they regulate that. But what we did, we did set up a loan fund. So we have the Canna-business Revolving Loan Fund for social equity cannabis supply chain-approved applicants and so we're receiving applications now, right now with a $10 million fund, and we're going for another $20 million so that companies will have working capital lines of credit just to help get them over the hump, maybe get their doors open.
Mike Hydeck: Competitive rates? Because if it's a loan fund and it's 21%...
Ginne-Rae Clay: Low interest. It's 6%. Between 6 and 9%.
Mike Hydeck: So what changes would you like to see in the new year moving forward? Are you still receiving information from people in the field? Or what's your first choice?
Ginne-Rae Clay: So I think for the lottery part, I think we have a really good handle on what needs to be done going forward. So when the lottery is announced, we will have already been educated. So in the first round of the lottery, we weren't, actually I wasn't in place. And so the council wasn't in place. And so folks who wanted to get involved, some of them were not able to get involved.
Mike Hydeck: The application process was clunky in the beginning.
Ginne-Rae Clay: A little clunky.. But we also wanted to educate people in the disproportionately impacted areas. So they would know how to apply and they'd be prepared to apply. So we're going to do that in the new year in anticipation of the lottery. And I think we're pretty good. I think we learned a lot of lessons, you know, during the first round. And so now we're going to focus on reinvesting in communities.
