BOSTON - A measure on track for the November statewide ballot would open the doors of the Massachusetts marketplace to legal use of recreational marijuana.

But a small section in the proposed ballot measure promoted by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol would also regulate the cultivation, process, distribution and sale of hemp.

Hemp is differentiated from marijuana because it has less of the psychoactive chemical present in marijuana.



Hemp has roughly 25,000 uses, according to Morgan Paxhia, founding partner and chief investor of Poseidon Asset Management, a hedge fund that invests in cannabis and hemp-related companies.

Among those uses: Shirts and rope. "You can buy hemp milk," Paxhia says.

Hemp is a "whole different industry" compared to marijuana, because the profit per acre is so high, he says.

@TheSamTracy The profit per acre comment was meant in comparison to crops hemp could rotate with or compete with such as cotton. — Morgan Paxhia (@MorganPaxhia) March 9, 2016

The Massachusetts ballot measure legalizing marijuana would place hemp under a proposed Cannabis Control Commission.

Marijuana legalization proponents included hemp in the ballot measure because it's part of the marijuana family of plants, they said.

"To what extent an industry springs up now, I think any other economic activity would be a very positive thing," said Jim Borghesani, spokesman for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

The hemp industry could soon become 10 times the size of the legal cannabis industry, according to Paxhia, whose company is focused on companies that provide cooling equipment and technologies that help with traceability of marijuana plants and compliance with local laws.

One company they're working with plans to provide dispensaries with metrics so they can view consumption demands and what cannabis products they're providing.

The legal marijuana industry in the United States has often been compared to the California Gold Rush and called the "Green Rush."

"We're the pickaxe and shovel people," Paxhia says.

An in Industrial hemp crop in New Zealand, where this low THC variety can be grown legally with a licence. (Photo via Flickr)

His San Francisco-based company is not yet involved in the Massachusetts market, according to Paxhia.

Massachusetts voters decriminalized small amounts of marijuana in 2008 and approved marijuana for medical use in 2012.

Four states have legalized: Colorado, Washington state, Oregon and Alaska.

Gov. Charlie Baker joined Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Attorney General Maura Healey in penning a Boston Globe op-ed asking voters to reject full legalization.

Baker told reporters on Monday that he supports the 2008 decriminalization of small amounts and 2012 medical marijuana initiative, according to the State House News Service.

"But the complete decriminalization of it based on a lot of the information that's come out of Washington and Colorado causes me to have great concern about this," Baker said.

A group of Massachusetts state senators is planning to release a report on marijuana on Tuesday morning. Eight members of the Senate's special marijuana committee traveled to Colorado in January to view the legal pot industry up close.

This post was updated with a comment on Twitter from Morgan Paxhia.