Dispensaries are busy for the first week of recreational marijuana sales in Connecticut
By Susan Raff and Evan Sobol
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NEWINGTON, Connecticut (WFSB) — Sales of adult-use marijuana started this week and Connecticut dispensaries say they’ve been busy.
Seven dispensaries are now selling both medical weed and adult use, and many will soon be up and running.
Eyewitness News visited Fine Fettle in Newington.
Fine Fettle is what’s called a hybrid. They are selling both medicinal marijuana and adult-use.
The products are similar, except adult-use costs a lot more because of taxes.
Even in the middle of the day during the week, there’s no shortage of customers.
Fine fettle in Newington started selling adult-use cannabis this week. Gummies are popular, which dispensaries couldn’t sell to medical patients.
“Now that recreational they are allowing us to use it. They were trying to steer away from products that could be geared towards children which is why they didn’t allow the gummies,” said Khalib Netupski of Fine Fettle.
“It’s way overdue. This should have been 30 years ago. I don’t think people should be arrested for plants,” said Jacob Dumais of East Hartford.
The plan was to allow people to buy an ounce, but that’s been scaled back to a quarter ounce to make sure there’s enough medical supply.
“We are going to monitor supply monitor that amount and see how medical sales are going and at this point we feel comfortable we had a good starting point,” said DCP Commissioner Michelle Seagull.
Adult use is more expensive than medicinal, and here’s why.
There is no tax on medical, but there are a couple of taxes on adult use.
There is a 3-percent sales tax which goes to the city or town where the dispensary is located.
There is also a THC content tax. The more THC in a product the higher the tax, which is between 10 and 15-percent of the sales price.
This puts the total tax at about 20-percent, which is similar to Massachusetts but about 4-percent less than New York.
“The stuff on the street right now is pretty scary. From what I have heard I don’t do any of that but it’s really scary what we are seeing with statistics and stuff so this is clean and safe,” said Holly of Southington.
Seven dispensaries are open for business now. Many more are in the pipeline.
Sales tax revenue will generate $26 million the first year and $44 million next year.
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