Evolution of an industry: Recreational cannabis market growth exceeds expectations By Arlinda Smith Broady Sponsored content contributor
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Much like the repeal of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution that prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic liquors, new laws enacted state by state legalizing the recreational use of marijuana are creating a booming industry. To date, cannabis consumption is legal in 19 states, Washington, D.C., and Guam. A growing majority of Americans believe that recreational marijuana should be legal. A Gallup poll conducted in October 2019 found that 66% of U.S. adults think the drug should be legal. A Pew Research Center survey and the General Social Survey conducted by the nonpartisan and objective research organization NORC at the University of Chicago found similar levels of support for marijuana legalization.
themselves,” she added in a recent interview.
But the ever-increasing demand for products and information surrounding the new industry made administration at The Herbalist realize that cannabis wasn’t just a niche product, or an interest shared by a limited audience. “To that end, we focused both the magazine and website contents on basic information that was accessible to casual users, in contrast to the existing hobby magazines that were oriented towards a much savvier audience,” said Kirchner, who is also special products editor for New England Newspapers Inc. “We quickly realized that there’s a much wider scope to this and we decided to give the people what they want,” said Letty Acosta, regional director of digital strategy & revenues for New England Newspapers.
With the change in attitudes, The Herbalist was born.
That evolution is now Home Grown New England, a news and information platform that uses print, digital, video, social media and electronic outdoor advertising to feed the needs of a growing consumer base.
“The goal was to make some sense of this frantically expanding new industry, offering a look into cannabis culture for old hands and curious newcomers alike,” wrote editor Kimberly Kirchner, in the debut issue. “With the Herbalist, we had two primary objectives: providing a safe place to advertise for dispensaries, which didn’t have many choices back in 2019; and to educate readers about the “finer points” of legal cannabis so they felt confident enough to visit a dispensary
“In terms of branding, our goal was to draw on retro design (acknowledging that, based on the age demo in the Berkshires, most of our readers would have been young adults in the ’60s’ and ’70s) while maintaining a modern, classy look that didn’t lean too far towards ‘dark, questionably-smelling head shop.’ The general tone in our promotional material and social media was conversational and just a little irreverent,” Kirchner said.
54 | UPCOUNTRY MAGAZINE | November/December 2021
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