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Lessons learned from other states on recreational marijuana

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Lessons learned from other states on recreational marijuana


(WFSB) – For the primary time in Connecticut historical past, smoking marijuana only for enjoyable just isn’t solely authorized, however inspired.

January rolled out the beginning of leisure gross sales so individuals may roll up.

Connecticut stands on the shoulders of a number of inexperienced giants.

Colorado turned the primary state to begin promoting leisure marijuana again in 2012.

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Their argument for lighting up—was similar to Connecticut’s.

“We anticipated that customers would enter into the regulated market, and cease buying marijuana in alleys and avenue corners,” stated Dan Pabon, a former Colorado state consultant and present legal professional for a hashish startup. “They positively did.”

He was instrumental in crafting the laws that outlined who may purchase hashish.

Pabon suggests Connecticut lawmakers ensure that the primary invoice regulating hashish isn’t the final.

He stated Colorado discovered the arduous approach, needing particular laws for the place individuals may devour the marijuana they simply legalized.

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“The one locations the place you could possibly do it have been in a non-public house, in a lodge that allowed marijuana use, many didn’t,” stated Pabon. “So that you had all these vacationers are available who didn’t have that outlet to devour. they definitely had the power to purchase, and so that you noticed public consumption happening, which was not our intent.”

There are already payments in Connecticut’s capitol pipeline this session coping with hashish.

Persevering with to go new legal guidelines means you additionally should proceed to observe that downside authorized hashish was supposed to resolve.

“Should you see that the illicit market continues to keep up the identical dimension and even develop, that you might want to make some adjustments to your regulated market. doubtlessly the taxes are too excessive,” Pabon stated. “Should you don’t measure on the entrance finish, , with a baseline, it’s actually arduous to make these choices.”

Eyewitness Information drove as much as Massachusetts to see how their choices are shaping up as there’s been ongoing debate over whether or not the state has issued too many leisure licenses.

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They legalized hashish in 2016 and opened gross sales in 2018.

The Hashish Management Fee studies 270 marijuana retailers are licensed, and no less than one has closed their doorways inside a 12 months of beginning leisure gross sales.

“Competitors’s going to occur on the market,” stated

Richard Lachapelle is the shop supervisor at INSA in Springfield. Their Easthampton retailer acquired licensed early on.

Lachapelle stated he hasn’t observed an extreme dip in gross sales since different dispensaries got here on-line, attributing that success to the pinnacle begin in constructing the model’s fame.

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“Individuals need that degree of service. You recognize this can be a luxurious merchandise so individuals wish to be handled that approach,” stated Lachapelle.

One thing he hopes will carry the shop via as extra dispensaries open in Connecticut.

“There’s solely 10 working proper now and none of them are close to the Massachusetts border,” Lachapelle stated.

Vermont’s leisure gross sales solely started a number of months in the past within the fall, so we don’t have years and years of gross sales information and legal guidelines to look again on.

However nonetheless, we wished to ask individuals how the shopping for course of has modified and the way the product is.

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“I really feel that the hashish recreationally right here is subpar. It tastes like grass and peanuts,” stated Alexander Gonzalez of Vermont.

“It’s been completely fantastic. The flower, you’ll be able to inform that it’s grown effectively. You’ll be able to inform that the individuals truly rising truly know what they’re doing,” stated Foster Bass.

Eyewitness Information acquired totally different takes from totally different individuals shopping for leisure marijuana in Vermont.

The state’s choice to legalize has steered individuals away from the black market, permitting individuals to strive different authorized choices like rising their very own adult-use crops.

“Develop your personal. don’t be lazy,” Gonzalez stated. “You management the standard, you management the value, it’s the sensible transfer. Why wouldn’t you?

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An identical home-growing legislation will begin in Connecticut in July.

Whether or not you purchase it from a dispensary or select to strive rising at house.

“The stuff on the streets it’s simply not value it,” stated Bass.

The method of blazing up is altering.

However supporters within the states that legalized marijuana earlier than Connecticut stated the most important takeaway is {that a} regulated market results in a safer excessive.

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“To manage it, to tax it and to basically, present assets for a public security marketing campaign,” Pabon stated.

“I believe legalizing it simply makes it safer total,” stated Lachapelle.

“To see the place it was grown,” Bass stated. “With the ability to open up a pamphlet and hey this treats this, this treats this, and that is truly regulated.”



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Connecticut

Connecticut’s time for energy investment is now – if state leaders get on board

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Connecticut’s time for energy investment is now – if state leaders get on board


As a 15-year veteran of the utility industry, I can tell you with certainty there’s nowhere like Connecticut. In other states, when utility companies receive downgrades in their credit rating, regulators and consumer advocates haul them into hearings, demanding to know their plans to rectify them.

Not so in Connecticut, where regulators themselves are named as the reason for the downgrades, and policymakers like the Office of Consumer Counsel and the Chairs of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee work overtime to provide political cover.

Meanwhile, the scope of these downgrades – from S&P and Moody’s, two of the most respected financial institutions in the world – extend statewide, from two Avangrid companies, Eversource and all its subsidiaries, to even a small water company.

Whatever the political rhetoric, the impacts are serious and the damage long-term. Building a grid for Connecticut’s future will require billions in new investment over the decades to come, and with the downgrades warning investors to be increasingly skeptical of Connecticut utilities, every single dollar just got more expensive.

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The state has a long list of goals for its economy and clear objectives for its utilities: build a modern, sustainable, reliable, resilient, renewable, innovative electric grid capable of supporting massive capacity increases from electrification and data centers. Alienating the investment community does nothing to further those goals; it only makes them less attainable.

But until PURA and state policymakers abandon their anti-utility bias, they will continue to miss today’s golden opportunity to build the energy system of tomorrow –- an opportunity other states are rigorously pursuing. Instead, the excellent reliability that customers rely on, built through a long legacy of investment, will be whittled away even as costs continue to rise.

This, to a question that Sen. Norm Needleman and Rep. Jonathan Steinberg raise in their editorial, is why companies like ours “care” if our credit rating is downgraded. We are not so short-sighted as to shrug off the consequences of higher costs for our customers.

But even more significant are the consequences to long-term energy investment in Connecticut. Utilities are some of the most capital-intensive businesses in the country. We rely on selling bonds to finance safe, reliable, high-quality service through investments like new substations, battery storage, flood walls, microgrids and more.

Downgrades signal to investors they should pull their loans, leaving us with insufficient capital to advance these innovations. Instead, utilities are forced to put what limited capital we can raise (through higher premiums on our bonds) into the most basic, fundamental projects, like storm restoration efforts or pole replacements after traffic accidents.

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Accepting – and even incentivizing – PURA to enable meager investments to support only the most basic service puts Connecticut out of step with our neighbors, as other northeastern states are doing the hard work of system planning for the future. It’s no coincidence that Eversource is putting forward 30-year investment plans in Massachusetts while pulling $500 million in investments from Connecticut. Nor should it be surprising that Avangrid company New York State Electric & Gas (NYSEG) is building two 1-megawatt battery energy storage systems that tap directly into New York substations, a major resiliency investment, while nothing of the sort is happening in Connecticut.

Regulators in Massachusetts and New York are far from easy or passive. They have high standards that utilities must work hard to meet, and they do not get everything they ask for, as Needleman and Steinberg baselessly claim is our demand.

What Massachusetts and New York do is set the rules of the road for utility companies. They set clear standards of performance they expect from utility companies – in everything from the level of detail in rate cases to their forward-looking investment plans – and they hold them accountable.

That is not the case in Connecticut. Legislators can obfuscate, downplay, or even offer fictitious conspiracy theories -– most incredibly, that we would pay credit rating agencies, which are independent referees under federal law, to downgrade our credit ratings when downgrades are good for no one.

But none of these political games change the fact that energy companies cannot invest in a state in which PURA puts politically expedient rate cuts over its stated objectives. Nor will they alleviate the underinvestment these policymakers are apparently willing to accept in favor of the fabrication that PURA is “simply holding utilities accountable.”

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I fear Connecticut’s energy infrastructure, and the economy it’s built on, will be left behind as other states move forward with a clear vision. The golden opportunity for investment in the energy future is now, and we are at serious risk of missing it as our regulators and policymakers prioritize waging political war on the state’s utilities. The longer they dally, the more likely it is that PURA’s actions and inaction will leave us in the dark.

 Charlotte Ancel is the Vice President of Investor Relations at Avangrid, the parent company of United Illuminating, Connecticut Natural Gas, and Southern Connecticut Gas.



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Library in South Windsor wraps up 14th annual Gingerbread House Festival

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Library in South Windsor wraps up 14th annual Gingerbread House Festival


Some people found a sweet escape from Sunday’s frigid winter temperatures. A chance to step outside the cold and into a different snowy environment.

It just made it feel like Christmas,” said Michael Mizla, of Manchester.

“We try to do this every year,” said Susan, Mizla’s wife.

Sunday was the last day to check out a festive, holiday tradition at the Wood Memorial Library and Museum in South Windsor – The 14th Annual Gingerbread House Festival, which organizers say is one of the largest gingerbread house festivals in New England.

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“People have made this their tradition,” said the library’s executive director Carolyn Venne. “We see the same large Vermont family every year the day after Thanksgiving on opening day. So, as people come in to see family locally, this becomes part of their tradition, and that makes it all meaningful for us.”

These gingerbread houses are on display in multiple rooms and floors throughout the library for weeks, from late November to just before Christmas.

“We probably range from about 75 to 150, and I think one year we topped out around 200,” said Venne.

Venne says behind these intricate candy creations are bakers, students, and community members.

At the end of the day, the gingerbread houses went to some lucky raffle winners or were donated to a nursing home in the area.

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Those who needed to do some last-minute holiday shopping, were covered – just like the icing on these graham cracker homes – as people could visit the library’s ‘Ye Old Gingerbread Shoppe’ and take some of the magic home with them.

“The holidays are full of things you remember as a kid, so it just feels like the kind of tradition you will remember as you grow up.”

While Sunday was the last day to immerse yourself in these festive, edible villages, there are more holiday traditions coming up at the library, including a Christmas concert next Saturday at 1:30 p.m.



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Connecticut farmers to benefit from federal disaster relief package

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Connecticut farmers to benefit from federal disaster relief package


Funding to help farmers impacted by disaster is on the way for those who have been seeking help.

That’s one aspect of what came out of a vote in Washington D.C. that in part prevented a government shutdown.

A 13 minute hailstorm in August destroyed William Dellacamera’s crops and cost him $400,000. He was only able to receive a little less than half of that from programs already in place.

“From that day on, basically everything I had grown for the season was destroyed,” said Dellacamera of Cecarelli’s Harrison Hill Farm.

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He’s become known locally for driving his tractor from Connecticut to Washington D.C., advocating for more state and federal funding for farmers like him.

In his travels, he landed meetings with the USDA and Connecticut’s delegation.

“I think they’re taking it seriously, and they did. They took it seriously,” said Dellacamera.

President Biden signed a disaster relief bill into law, advocated for in part by Connecticut’s delegation.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro says Connecticut has lost 460 farms over the last five years, primarily related to weather events that put their livelihoods at stake.

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“I am pleased that we have an agreement on $100 billion in disaster aid,” said DeLauro on the House Floor Friday, who advocated for the bill.

As part of that, Connecticut farmers like Dellacamera will be able to tap into $23 million of relief from crop losses, according to Representative John Larson.

“Now knowing this is going to make a difference is a big deal. And I hope it does, I hope it does make a difference,” said Dellacamera.

Also part of the bill, DeLauro advocated for a block grant of $220 million that’s only for small and medium-sized farmers who have lost crops in 2023 and 2024.

All of New England would fit in the parameters for the grant, allowing farmers to get help without crop insurance or a national disaster declaration.

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“We came to a conclusion that these were all of the pieces that were needed to move forward,” said DeLauro on the House Floor Friday, about the bill as a whole.

DeLauro’s team tells us that disaster relief funding will go from the USDA to the states to get payments out.

 Dellacamera says he’s grateful, and there’s more work to be done.  He hopes this block grant and general disaster relief funding will be able to live on.

“It takes the red tape out of it a little bit,” said Dellacamera of the block grant. “Hopefully it could be funded into the future, you know, as it might be needed more and more,” he said.

In the meantime, the state of Connecticut will be identifying which farmers experienced disasters in 2023 and 2024 to see who would benefit from block grant funding.

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