PORTLAND, CT – It’s an unassuming brick building in an industrial park in the shadow of the Arrigoni Bridge on the Portland side that you wouldn’t give a second glance.
But as you get closer you may notice the array of cameras dotted around the property, secure locked doors with electronic entry pads, and windows and doors you can’t see through.
This is the home of Affinity Grow, one of Connecticut’s newest cannabis micro-cultivators.
And as you step through the main entrance you’re hit by the plant’s unmistakable aroma.
Affinity Grow Manager Rino Ferrarese is no stranger to the cannabis business, having co-founded Connecticut Pharmaceutical Solutions (CTPharma) – one of four original cannabis cultivators that served Connecticut’s medical marijuana market when it first launched in 2014.
Ferrarese takes us on a tour of the facility which is a rabbit warren of brightly-lit corridors, white painted walls, and pristine grey floors.
“So, the cultivation classes include the micro-cultivator, which is limited to a 10,000 sq foot canopy, we are permitted to cultivate, do extraction, we can do home delivery to customers but not patients. We can basically do everything a cultivator or a producer can do but we’re limited in our growing size.”
He also has a history with the building as it was where he co-founded CTPharma.
“I came here October 2013, with a tape measure and a notebook and a pencil and I was literally measuring the site because we designed the facility that would eventually be here,” Ferrarese said.
Fast forward to 2023 when Rino left CTPharma, and around $7 million later he and around 30 staff now preside over the new startup.
He acknowledges that getting into the lucrative cannabis business doesn’t come cheap.
“We’ve had to bring in investors,” Ferrarese said. “Anytime I’ve been involved in a start-up or operation involving cannabis it’s always been capital intensive.”
His micro-cultivator license wasn’t expensive because of the type of business he was opening and because those are provided through a lottery system by the state.
But that’s not the case for other licenses for the various types of cannabis businesses from cultivator to producer – some can run in the millions of dollars. Meaning only those with deep pockets can really afford to get in on a large scale and he acknowledges that much of that money comes from outside the state of Connecticut, which he says often draws criticism from people especially when the state talks about “social equity” within the industry.
As we continue the tour, passing through secure locked doors and always under the watchful gaze of security cameras, Ferrarese talks about how regulated the industry is as compared to many others.
“The agency that holds our license is the Department of Consumer Protection, drug division,” Ferrarese said. “We’re also beholden to Connecticut DEEP, also the Agricultural Department to some regard, OSHA of course,” and he reels off at least another half a dozen agencies or organizations, including regular visits from the local police and fire departments.
Affinity Grow has two dispensaries in Bridgeport and New Haven that sell what is grown in the Portland facility and they also sell to all the other cannabis dispensaries in the state.
“We source premium genetics, the best strains from across the country,” he said, adding that they currently have around 35 unique strains from which they grow their products.
“And we really try to preserve the integrity of what the breeder identified or found ideal in that particular strain,” he said. “Because we’re small we can pay attention to details that a larger operation might not have the luxury of seeing.”
What Ferrarese means by that is because they are small, they can pivot more quickly to growing a more popular or trending strain of cannabis without too much downtime or wasted product.
He points out a particular plant with the name – Blue Zushi – “like sushi, but with a Z” he adds.
“This is a very successful West Coast strain, so we’re trying it out and we’ll see what happens,” he said
Due to naming conventions in Connecticut, however, even if Blue Zushi is a hit, it wont ever be called that in dispensaries as the state won’t allow anything that sounds enticing like food names in case it gets into the hands of the wrong audience, namely young children.
As we tour the growing rooms, which are large and well lit with no windows and carefully temperature controlled, Ferrarese talks about the growing process, which takes around 14 to 16 weeks.
“There’s a tremendous amount of science and details to tend to,” he says. “It comes down to the fundamentals, making sure that your implements are clean, your working space is sanitary and your team is well trained.”
One criticism that has been levied at the cannabis grown in Connecticut is the level of mold and mildew found in the plants, and Ferrarese is quick to point out that there has been a lot of misinformation on this topic.
“When you’re conducting agricultural processes in a building and indoors, you’re not using heavy biocides or pesticides. So, there’s the potential for a pathogen to exploit the plant,” he says, adding but “are there microbes present that are human pathogens? What risk exists for humans? I can tell you that any operation I’ve been involved in hasn’t had mold or mildew problems.”
Ferrarese concedes mold and mildew can happen in plants because of the very nature of the New England climate, but he says all cannabis is independently checked by a third party laboratory in the state and if they detect any abnormalities then the grower or cultivator is informed and they must act to make sure their plants meet the legal standards set by the legislature, be that mold and mildew levels or what is called the total THC levels, which is a measure of the strength of the cannabis plant.
In Connecticut recreational cannabis must have a total THC level, that’s the chemical that gives you a high, of less than 29.9%.
The state is one of a handful that has a total THC cap on recreational cannabis. Nearby Massachusetts and New York don’t have a similar cap, one of the reasons why, says Ferrarese, people who were used to going to Massachusetts before Connecticut legalized recreational pot, still go there to get the type of cannabis to which they’re accustomed.
Ferrarese says that’s just part of the reason Connecticut’s sales have plateaued in the adult-use market in just over a year without meeting the state’s targets.
He also points to how the products are packaged here and the experience people get when they go to a Connecticut dispensary, saying it’s very “surgical” compared to neighboring states where packaging is brighter and dispensaries are more exciting to visit.
“We have limitations in marketing. We don’t market, we’re not on billboards. We don’t do radio advertising,” he says.
Having checked with the Department of Consumer Protection, Ferrarese is right. They have very strict guidelines in which to advertise their products to consumers and have to prove that at least 90% of any audience who may see or hear any advertisement is over the age of 21, which is the legal age to buy adult-use cannabis in the state.
And not forgetting that although weed is now legal in Connecticut, doesn’t mean the black market has gone away.
Which, together with package stores in the state selling cannabis infused drinks, all adds up to continued competition for this fledgling industry.
Ferrarese is upbeat that all of these things can be overcome eventually.
And he and the rest of the industry are hoping things will change at the federal level soon as a raft of cannabis legislation continues to be considered, some ranging from de-scheduling cannabis and removing it from the controlled substances act, to giving the states more enforcement control and focusing on equity provisions.
If these changes and others occurred it would then allow the industry to get financed and take other methods of payment for cannabis, other than cash and debit payments, opening up the banking system to cannabis and removing barriers to an industry that has been stigmatized for long enough.
