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With mere days remaining before Maryland ushers in adult-use cannabis sales, leading MSO Curaleaf says it is ready for opening day and looking forward to a successful kick-off. “We are very excited to start adult-use sales in Maryland,” said CEO Matt Darin about the festivities they have planned. “New customers will be welcomed with on-site celebrations at each of our four locations on July 1st. This will include food, swag giveaways, and games.”
Limited to four locations by the state, Curaleaf has dispensaries in Columbia, Reisterstown, Gaithersburg, and Frederick, each of which will now serve both medical and recreational customers, albeit with an emphasis on the former. “Curaleaf has been serving the Maryland medical market since 2017 and we will continue to prioritize our medical patients moving forward,” said Darin.
To that end, he added, “We’ve taken steps to ensure that the start of adult-use cannabis sales does not impede the level of service our medical patients receive. We have hired an additional 40 team members to ensure we’re adequately staffed to handle the increase in traffic to our dispensaries. In addition, medical patients will have dedicated staff for service and faster check-out.”
Darin also extolled the ongoing benefits in remaining a medical cannabis patient. “While there have been dips in medical enrollment in other states that begin adult-use sales,,” he said, “there are still a lot of benefits to being enrolled in the medical program, including priority access to products and services as well as being exempt from the adult-use sales tax.
Maryland will become Curaleaf’s 11th adult-use state on July 1, joining Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont. Medical only states it currently operates in include Florida, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah. Curaleaf operates four medical dispensaries in New York, where, in league with similarly situated players, it is litigating to expedite its entrance into the state’s nascent adult-use market. In April, the company also sparred with New Jersey regulators, who had threatened to deny renewal of two Curaleaf licenses before reversing course.
The company in January also announced the cessation of operations in California, Colorado, and Oregon, and the consolidation of operations in Massachusetts “in an effort to further optimize operations and reduce costs.”
Maryland, noted Darin, “is important to the overall cannabis movement we’ve seen across the country. We now have 23 states that have legalized adult-use sales and a growing majority of Americans have access to legal, regulated cannabis.”
But the state also represents a not insignificant foothold for Curaleaf in a part of the country it calls home. “The East Coast continues to ‘go green’ and Curaleaf has a presence in the majority of legalized states across the region,” said Darin. “We’re building a brand and a retail experience where consumers can expect consistent products and service if they’re traveling between states.
“Curaleaf has been a part of the medical program in Maryland since it began,” he added, “and the state has a great cannabis culture which I believe adult-use sales will continue to enhance.”
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