Licensed marijuana firms cannot legally move pot products across state lines. But that doesn’t mean they’ve been spared the supply chain disruptions wreaking havoc on the rest of the business world.
As the Omicron variant surges, Massachusetts cannabis companies are facing significant shortages of foreign-made packaging and construction materials that are essential to their operations, including vaporizer batteries and cartridges, childproof containers, and the steel beams and air conditioning equipment used to build indoor cultivation facilities.
With many of the ports and factories that supply those materials closed or running at limited capacity because of COVID-19, cannabis producers and retailers said they are scrambling to find alternatives — often at much higher cost. Combined with staffing problems also caused by the latest coronavirus surge, the shortages have resulted in higher business expenses, limited product selection, and delayed construction of new buildings, executives said.
“All our business expectations are out the window right now,” said Kobie Evans, co-owner of the Pure Oasis marijuana store in Boston’s Grove Hall neighborhood. “The virus has thrown everything into a tailspin.”
Pure Oasis is gearing up to build a new retail shop in downtown Boston, plus its own growing and processing facility in Dighton. [Read more at The Boston Globe]
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