MA State News Roundup: MLK monument; Wu leaves Twitter; cannabis pricing plummets

(1) Today "The Embrace" is scheduled to be unveiled on the Boston Common. Good timing for the Martin Luther King Jr holiday weekend. This will be a new excuse for a day trip into Boston on a good weather day.

Boston Globe article (subscription may be required)

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/01/12/arts/embrace-is-tribute-love-justice-unsung/

Commonwealth Magazine article

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/raceracism/healey-calls-king-statue-important-given-bostons-narrative/

Artist Hank Willis Thomas, who conceived "The Embrace," is seen in his studio in Brooklyn, N.Y. JENNIFER S. ALTMAN

(2) CommonWealth Magazine runs a headline "Citing increasingly toxic climate, Michelle Wu turns away from Twitter"

A sad state of affairs for anyone using social media tools these days. You can read the full article here -> https://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/citing-increasingly-toxic-climate-michelle-wu-turns-away-from-twitter/

(3) Common Wealth Magazine also provides some insights into the cannabis market. Why does this matter to Franklin? Given the change in the host community agreements, the Town of Franklin is still schedule to get a percentage of the revenues from cannabis sales and we have both growth facilities as well as retails facilities. With the budget cycle starting, these changes will perhaps show up in a lesser amount anticipated on the revenue sheet.

"ON A RECENT DAY, a Brockton customer looking for some marijuana could have bought one-eighth of an ounce of LA Kush Cake flower for just $20 at Commonwealth Alternative Care. Nearby, Legal Greens was advertising one-eighth of an ounce of Jet Fuel flower for $25, according to the marijuana marketing website Leafly.

The prices are way down from the $50 or $60 that a decent strain of marijuana was going for just two years ago. That’s good news for consumers tired of paying some of the highest prices for marijuana in the nation, but it’s bad news for the state’s legal marijuana industry. Just four years after cannabis shops opened, the price decline is destabilizing the industry and threatening to force companies out of business. Policy makers are being urged to consider radical action, including placing a moratorium on the granting of new cultivation licenses."

Continue reading the article ->

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/marijuana/plummeting-prices-destabilize-mass-marijuana-market/