Heady Vermont, the cannabis industry group that expanded in 2019 into a new 3,000-square-foot headquarters in Burlington, is on an indefinite hiatus, said founder Monica Donovan.

Donovan said that no events or publications are planned, and she doesn't know if she'll continue with Heady. "I’d love to, but won’t know positively for a while," she said by text on Wednesday.

The 5-year-old membership organization published a weekly "News Roll Up" and organized events for businesses and consumers, including an annual trade show at the Champlain Valley Expo. At its peak last year, it had an all-female staff of six. But the pressures of the pandemic shutdowns were too much for Heady, said Kathryn Blume, the former communications director, who left last summer as work dwindled.

“Events were one of our primary income streams, and if you can’t have events, that makes things really hard,” said Blume, who now works in communications for NurseGrown Organics CBD in Underhill. “Also, the fact that it took so long to get the tax-and-regulate bill passed meant that a lot of businesses who would have been business partners for us were on hold as well, and then the financial uncertainty of the pandemic was, I think, a perfect storm.”

The Evansville Trading Post, a general store in the small town of Brownington,  has adapted over the years to stay afloat. These days, its wares include food, fuel, fishing licenses and furniture.

Thanks to the town's voters, store owners Andrew and Kelly Swett hope to add cannabis to that list — not the CBD that’s already available on the counter, but the THC-containing products that people use to get high.

“Things aren’t going so great in retail,” said Andrew, who was relieved on Wednesday to learn that the town had voted to allow commercial cannabis establishments, a move made possible by a bill passed last year. “It would be helpful.”

About two dozen Vermont towns considered similar measures on Town Meeting Day, and almost all passed them.

Under Vermont's 2020 law, municipalities must opt in to the adult-use marijuana marketplace through a public vote before any sales can occur. The law allows the state’s existing medical marijuana dispensaries to obtain licenses to manufacture and sell cannabis products to the public starting in May 2022. Other outlets granted retail licensees won't be able to sell until October 2022.

The towns that put the measure to a vote Tuesday are widely spread around the state, and included the large — such as Burlington, which approved the measure by a wide margin — and the small. Burke passed the measure by a vote of 133 to 130, according to the town’s treasurer.

Only three municipalities — Newport City, Richmond, and Lyndon — rejected it, according to early counts. Results from Ludlow were not yet available Wednesday.

The measure passed in Burlington doesn’t allow any marijuana sales until October 2022.

Andrew said he’s already working with one CBD supplier with whom he’d like to partner for the marijuana business. He thinks another entrepreneur who was eying Newport City will probably also try to set up shop in Brownington after that city said no to marijuana sales.

“We’re probably not going to be the only one in town,” he said. “I think it would help business in general.”

Only about 10 percent of Vermont municipalities put the matter up for a vote. More should have, said lawyer Tim Fair, who saw the results as representative of the state at large. Fair is a founder of the Burlington law firm Vermont Cannabis Solutions.

“One of the big surprises for me in this process is how the selectboards were adamantly opposed to putting this vote to the people,” Fair said. “We’re a representative democracy. We can’t agree on anything anymore, yet almost 70 percent  of Vermonters agree we want a legal cannabis industry.”

Selectboards weren’t the only ones opposed. Pathologist Catherine Antley campaigned against retail sales in Middlebury, which approved the measure by a wide margin. Antley said the industry cannot be successfully regulated, and that cases involving organized crime quadrupled in Colorado after commercial marijuana was legalized. “How many Vermonters know that there is essentially no profit in the industry without the creation and maintenance of addiction,” Antley wrote in an email, adding that the industry targets young people.
Before stores can sell cannabis, the governor has to appoint a Cannabis Control Board, whose members would be full-time state employees. That process is already behind schedule. The board members’ terms were due to start January 19, but Gov. Phil Scott hasn’t yet named his choices. The law calls for the board to recommend certain fees by April 1, and to begin making rules for cannabis establishments by June 1.

Scott has been forthright with his concerns about legalizing marijuana, saying there is more work to be done in the areas of road safety, racial equity and the prevention of misuse. He allowed the legislature’s tax-and-regulate bill to become law without his signature last fall.

Eli Harrington, a Burlington-area cannabis activist who runs a website called Vermontijuana, noted that the town where the governor lives, Berlin, voted to allow commercial marijuana sales.

“Hopefully it’s a little kick in the ass for this commission to form, because that’s really what is holding things up,” Harrington said.

When things do get under way, Scott Sparks, who owns the Vermont Hempicurean CBD store in Brattleboro, has big expansion plans. Along with opening an adult-use marijuana store, he’d like to create a test kitchen to concoct edible marijuana products, expand his sales of cannabis growing supplies, and create an area for growing plants as a demonstration for visitors. He envisions the latter as a “Ben & Jerry’s-type thing for people who haven’t seen cannabis growing before.”

Vermont will receive $1.5 million in a multistate deal with the consulting firm McKinsey to settle legal claims over its work with OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma to boost opioid sales.

Attorney General T.J. Donovan announced on Thursday the state's sliver of a reported $573 million settlement with 47 states.

Updated at 8:07 p.m.

Purdue Pharma, the notorious drugmaker accused of fueling the opioid crisis, will plead guilty to two counts of violating federal anti-kickback laws, a major win for Vermont U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan, whose office uncovered the scheme. The company, best known for producing the opioid OxyContin, will also admit to defrauding federal health agencies.

Purdue will pay a criminal penalty of more than $5.5 billion in what the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday is the largest such penalty ever levied against a pharmaceutical manufacturer in a criminal case. Purdue will also pay an additional $2.8 billion civil fine, making for an $8.3 billion total settlement.

"The resolution in today’s announcement re-affirms that the Department of Justice will not relent in its multi-pronged efforts to combat the opioids crisis," Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen said during a press conference announcing the deal.

Nolan's office began investigating Purdue in 2018. This past January, she announced a $145 million settlement with electronic medical records company Practice Fusion, which had conspired with Purdue to push pills to patients using an alert system embedded in medical software.

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