A lift for cannabis delivery
State marijuana panel considers new rules to make it easier to do business
Alissa Nowak, founder of the cannabis delivery company Lucky Green Ladies in Norton, delivers about $20,000 worth of weed every month. Yet she struggles to turn a profit. A $50 marijuana delivery 15 minutes away brings in barely enough money to break even, she said, given the cost of the two employees required for each delivery, plus the gas, vehicle, and company facility.
“Having to employ the two drivers in the vehicle — it’s not a profitable operating model,” said Nowak, who said the drivers each earn $18 an hour.
But now the state Cannabis Control Commission is poised to change its rules in ways that Nowak and other delivery operators hope will boost their bottom lines.
The commission preliminarily approved changes in December that would eliminate its requirement for two employees to be present for all cannabis deliveries. Regulators also preliminarily voted to allow delivery operators to own three delivery licenses, up from two, and to be able to repackage their own marijuana products. The commission must take a final vote, which has not been scheduled, to make the new rules take effect.
The votes came after advocacy by the state’s cannabis delivery operators, which say they have long faced thin profit margins. The state has licensed 34 delivery businesses; of those, 10 are approved to operate.
“Every delivery operator is really backing this,” said Ericca Kennedy, cofounder of the delivery operator Doobie. “The commission took a really educated approach to make these changes and they were very thoughtful about it.”
Across Massachusetts, cannabis delivery sales
have increased in the past year. In December 2023, marijuana couriers and delivery operators reported combined monthly sales of nearly $1.25 million, up from about $766,000 in December 2022, according to commission data provided in response to a public records request. (Couriers contract with dispensaries and don’t sell their own cannabis products, while delivery operators can sell products.)
Delivery businesses alone sold $9.15 million worth of cannabis from April 2022, when the state first approved delivery to start, through December, the data show. More than 400 cannabis products have been delivered on average each day during that time, according to the data.
All the state’s delivery companies are small businesses. The commission has made delivery licenses exclusively available to participants in its programs aimed at benefiting communities harmed most by the war on drugs. Regulators said that exclusivity would last at least three years starting in April 2022.
While cannabis delivery companies praised the commission’s upcoming policy changes, they said the changes won’t eliminate all their struggles. Advertising restrictions hamper companies’ ability to raise awareness of their services, said Rolling Releaf owners Devin Alexander and Bryce Hall.
“As a cannabis company, you have to make sure 85 percent of the audience you are marketing to is 21 and above,” Alexander said. He said the company mainly relies on word of mouth.
Rolling Releaf faced other difficulties following its February 2023 opening. The company worked closely with Lantern, the cannabis spinoff of Drizly. Drizly was a liquor delivery service that Uber bought for $1.1 billion in 2021 and then recently shut down and folded into its own operations. Lantern closed in January 2023. Rolling Releaf was part of Lantern’s accelerator program, which offered support and paid for the company’s attorneys until it was licensed, the owners said.
“Without them, I don’t even know where we would be,” said Hall.
Two weeks before Rolling Releaf opened, though, the owners learned that Lantern was closing.
“We really started off really slow because Lantern was really known and that’s where people were used to getting deliveries from,” Hall said. “Our digital presence is our most valuable thing we have, which is why Lantern going down was a big hit.”
The company now has a presence on Leafly and Weedmaps, popular websites where people can order cannabis.
Kennedy’s firm, Doobie, is on those delivery platforms as well. For her, cannabis means more than just business.
After being in a severe car accident in 2011, Kennedy started using marijuana to help ease her pain. She decided to obtain a delivery operator license alongside her husband in 2018 and cofound Doobie, a weed delivery service in the Greater Boston area.
“This was a chance to be able to be productive and to contribute to my community and not be judged for being a consumer also,” Kennedy said.
“It’s not an easy industry to get into, as a minority couple,” she added.
For Kennedy, Nowak, and other marijuana delivery entrepreneurs, the state’s upcoming regulatory changes make them believe the future of their industry in Massachusetts is bright.
“It’s been one hell of a ride,” Kennedy said. “We’re thankful to be continuing on this journey and to keep growing the business and looking forward to seeing what the future of delivery in Massachusetts looks like.”