A conversation with Grassp Health CEO Veronica Santarelli about business, patients, and priorities
The Massachusetts cannabis industry has faced no shortage of controversies in recent months. Among other major stories, we saw Trulieve fined for six figures, a debate over the license cap, and a proposal for a legislative takeover of the Cannabis Control Commission.
All of that action and dysfunction aside, there are also many positive storylines in New England weed, and one is the emergence of unique operators like Grassp Health, which delivers on the North Shore.
Co-founded in 2014 by CEO Veronica Santarelli and company President CJ Moebius, Grassp first started out in Arizona as a medical-only delivery service, then expanded all the way across the country with its move into the Mass market as a delivery operator.
Grassp Health is also partnered with Grassp Ventures, which is soon to provide courier and transporter services out of their joint Salem facility. As the Social Equity partner Dan Berger told Talking Joints Memo, they’re “hoping to expand our abilities to serve patients and adult-use customers alike via partnerships with dispensaries, as well as fulfill business to business transportation needs.”
With more than a decade of cannabis industry experience and a deeply personal origin story, Santarelli has kept her company’s ship steady despite numerous bureaucracy-induced headaches. She’s also had to deal with what the CEO describes as bad-faith business practices by much larger competitors.
I asked about what it takes to steer this kind of small ship and how they’re calibrating Grassp for commonwealth consumers.
Gorsline: It’s an interesting time to enter the Mass cannabis market, to say the least. Can you describe the decision-making process behind Grassp’s expansion plan?
Santarelli: I used to live and work in Massachusetts before I was relocated to California, and I always dreamed about coming back to start a company. When I learned about the Social Equity Program and the fact that they were designating delivery licenses to those individuals, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to help someone who was disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs and expand our existing organization which was doing a lot of good work for patients in Arizona, via medical cannabis delivery and specialized healthcare services.
Grassp’s path into the Massachusetts market had some roadblocks along the way. What were some of the biggest challenges you and your team faced?
The biggest challenge so far was when Curaleaf, the largest MSO in the industry, bought the dispensary we had been partnered with for six years and, instead of honoring the contract we had in place, they broke our contract and unilaterally shut us down, while bringing in their own competing delivery service from Las Vegas. Without talking to me or copying me, they sent an email to our 27 employees and put them on “unpaid leave” until further notice. I had to find out from my operations manager.
It was the most traumatic event we’ve ever been through—not only for our employees, but also for the medical patients we serve. In Arizona, we exclusively serve medical patients and suddenly the hospice patients we delivered to were unable to get their much-needed medicine. This shutdown also caused us to lose our entire cash flow, which we were using to fund the social equity delivery license here in Massachusetts. We were unable to pay our rent for over a year and almost lost our warehouse space in Salem. We had to pay over $25,000 in late fees for rent and beg our landlords not to kick us out. I still can’t believe we overcame all those challenges and are finally now in business.
How does Grassp’s approach to patient care and services differ from that of your competitors?
Our passion is to serve people that have health-related needs. What we know from operating in states that went from medical to recreational is that a lot of people who originally got medical cards don’t renew them once they can access the recreational market, so we are excited to be able to serve people immediately, without the barrier to entry of having to go get a medical card. Take hospice patients for example, some people just don’t have time to go through the process of getting approved for a medical card, they need service immediately. We offer free health consultations to anyone who is considering or is curious about using cannabis for health-related reasons.
As far as specialized services are concerned, we offer concierge-level support and our goal is to always exceed expectations. We serve adult consumers who want a professional experience and we cater to the hospice and dementia patients, because those populations are in great need of urgent delivery for symptom management.
My family has a history of dementia and my father died too young…seeing him in hospice care and suffering in a nursing institution made me want to provide safe access to those in need, which is exactly what we are doing.
You have spoken about the importance of specialized services for medical cannabis patients suffering from dementia. What would you say to spouses, siblings, children, and other loved ones of dementia patients who might be on the fence about exploring medical cannabis treatment options?
A condition like dementia affects everyone involved—the caregivers, the patient themselves, and the family. With dementia, what we see is sundowning behaviors that decrease quality of life. Extreme agitation and/or anxiety and the standard protocol of care is plying these patients with antipsychotics and benzos. This leads to fall risks, chemical restraint, and the families we have worked with hate seeing their loved ones in a zombie-like state and over-medicated.
This is the issue with synthetic pharmaceuticals and a condition like dementia—the side effects are leading families to search for a more natural approach, and THC/CBD can be extremely effective with proper dosing strategies. Families should ask, Does my loved one have a quality of life? If the answer is no, we are here to help.
What are some of the key regulatory differences between the Arizona and Massachusetts medical cannabis industries, and what regulatory issues/challenges, if any, has Grassp run into during and after the startup process in both states?
Arizona and Massachusetts are very different. In Arizona, there is limited licensing, most licenses are vertical and dual, meaning they can serve both medical patients and recreational customers. Delivery has been completely left out of the recreational market, but that should change in 2025.
In Massachusetts, this will be the first time we can’t serve people that currently have a medical card, unless they want to pay adult-use taxes. And there are a lot of municipalities that have a delivery ban, which is affecting us negatively.
The biggest regulatory difference that we are excited to see change, is the two-driver rule. That rule is supposed to change in the near future and it can’t come soon enough. Delivery services can’t be profitable with that rule in place, and we’ve done cannabis delivery for over a decade with no issues.
Does Grassp plan to or have there been any discussions about further expansion into New England or any other states in the future?
Right now we are laser-focused on Massachusetts. Expansion in this space is very challenging, and I’ve seen many companies go under when they try to expand. We will be interested in pursuing additional licenses when the time is right, but right now we just want to make this delivery operator license based in Salem a huge success.
