Jordan MacKenzie Whittaker, founder of a Boston-based business development agency for the cannabis market, said years ago she would never have considered buying weed from a chain-like legal cannabis store.
That’s because she liked the community element of the informal legacy industry, which she said prioritized the ritual of gathering and sharing among friends. But increasingly, she said, she’s been won over by the easy process and reliable content found in a legal dispensary.
“I’m even over here buying my own pre-rolls now … for the convenience of it all,” said MacKenzie Whittaker, co-founder and chief executive of the Weedaker Group.
It’s sentiments like these that are contributing to a shrinking legacy market — aided by a growing number of legal dispensaries in the state and dropping prices, making the black market industry less profitable.
Recreational marijuana became legal in 2016 after a narrow ballot question result with 54% in favor of legalization. The state’s voters last week decided to keep recreational marijuana use legal with a resounding 76% vote against the repeal.
Now, state data shows that some 37% of state residents — aged 16 to 65 — had, between 2019 and 2023, used cannabis in the past year, according to a report released this March. That number rose to 43% of residents in 2023 alone, the report concluded.
The data shows that the majority of people, about 61%, say they acquired their cannabis from a store. This is also while a shrinking number, about a quarter of users, say they still depend on the informal market.
Younger people rely more heavily on the underground market, with 42% of those aged 16 to 20 reporting they buy their marijuana from a dealer. The report says this comes as no surprise given that a person must be 21 years old to legally purchase recreational cannabis. Younger people do make up the smallest percentage of the state’s cannabis users and more than half of that demographic, 54%, reported to have never used cannabis at all.
Colin Chabot, owner of The Chabot Corp, a creative brand development company based in Worcester that serves the cannabis industry, said the underground market has indeed shrunk. But he added that it hasn’t ended completely, with some legacy dealers still making numbers work.
“They’re doing the Lord’s work,” Chabot said. “Not everyone can go into a dispensary. Not everyone has a license that they can walk into a store with. There are people that need access to this medicine that don’t have the luxury of going into stores, don’t have the luxury of having the money to spend on the weed, plus taxes.”
The first dispensaries appeared in 2018 — in Leicester and Northampton. Since then, these brick-and-mortar stores have taken up the majority of the market, with about 380 operational marijuana retailers in the state, according to the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission.
In 2025, the adult-use cannabis industry generated more than $1.65 billion in Massachusetts, according to the commission. Just this past September, the state’s recreational market hit a cumulative benchmark of $10 billion since retail operations began in 2018, state data shows.
Some weed enthusiasts lament the lost culture of the black market days. One veteran underground distributor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that before legalization, cannabis was for many people, a passion.
“There [were] a lot of small batch growers that really cared about what they put out there,” he said. “They don’t care when they go into their facility.”
He said that at the peak of his business he would transport hundreds of pounds of cannabis from California to Massachusetts. But once recreational marijuana was legalized, he said, he could no longer earn enough to make the business work.
“It’s just penny pinching. A six-hour flight there, six-hour flight back, pay for a rental vehicle, pay for people to come back and forth with me. For what? To make $200 on a unit. It’s just not worth it for me anymore,” he said. “It’s a sad market now.”
Others say they have parlayed their legacy market experience into careers in the legal market.
Some are benefitting from the state’s Social Equity Program meant to support those disproportionately affected by the “war on drugs.”
Devin Alexander, co-founder and chief executive of a cannabis delivery dispensary called Rolling Releaf, said he was a part of the state’s inaugural class of legacy workers to get help after weed was legalized.
He said he was a small-time seller and once was arrested for possessing three grams of cannabis in 2011, something he doesn’t like to think about. But in 2023, he created the first Black-owned cannabis business in Newton.
With his delivery service, Alexander said customer service is incredibly important to what they do. The legal market has also invited new types of customers — older populations and those who have more trust in the product due to legalization.
“Obviously, they don’t have to go to some shady parking lot somewhere and meet somebody,” he said. “They form relationships with these people, with these stores, with these communities and they have their favorite budtender.”
One of the biggest benefits of the regulated market, many say, is reduced health concerns.
Chris Hudalla, chief scientific officer of ProVerde Laboratories, one of the state’s first accredited cannabis testing labs, said Massachusetts has practically zero tolerance for the use of prohibited pesticides in the growing of flower marijuana. “From a pesticide perspective, I would say that flower that is on the market today is a lot safer,” Hudalla said.
But, Hudalla added, the regulated weed available at a dispensary can still have problems. He said weed can be moldy — even in a store. He also worries that some cannabis products have more potency than described on their labels.
He said the state needs to improve enforcement. And he is confident there will be changes, including increased testing and lab oversight with new leadership of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.
MacKenzie Whittaker of the Weedaker Group said she doesn’t see the underground market ever completely going away. Some people can’t get a license for one reason or another. She said now that marijuana is not an illegal drug in Massachusetts, people in the underground market should have more leeway to sell their wares.
“There’s still folks that don’t have licenses that are cultivators, manufacturers, chefs, researchers, you name it,” she said. “It’s where we got started. There is a place and a space where that can exist in all markets?”
