Law Massachusetts

[Baron23]

Everything you need to know about Massachusetts weed sales

The state’s recreational market is slated to open on July 1, but there could be snafus.

Back in November 2016, after 1.8 million Massachusetts residents voted to legalize recreational marijuana, it didn’t take long for the politicians in the Legislature to start interfering with the rollout of sales. First, they passed a six-month delay to the entire law, giving them more time to draw up regulations. Then, they raised the taxes on cannabis products and clarified that towns can ban the industry if they want. They also restricted advertising and packaging.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, who opposed legalization in the first place, approved those changes, only begrudgingly accepting that “the voters had spoken.”

But now, finally, the regulations have been approved. And officials say the state will be ready in July, when Massachusetts weed sales—the legal kind, that is—are scheduled to begin.

Here’s what you need to know.

When will I be able to legally buy weed?

That’s a fair question since it took Massachusetts almost three years to open its first medical marijuana dispensary after medical cannabis was legalized by voters. While some say legal weed sales will begin “July 1,” that exact date is not yet a certainty, reports The Boston Globe. That’s just the earliest possible date for Massachusetts weed sales to theoretically begin.

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission will start accepting applications for weed business licenses on April 1. It then has a maximum of 90 days, from the day applications are received, to act on them. “Our intent is to have a go on July 1 and we are hitting all of the deadlines that we have in the legislation, so I’m feeling good about that,” Cannabis Control Commission Chairman Steven Hoffman told the State House News Service.

People line up at Massachusetts first medical marijuana dispensary to open in Salem, Massachusetts, on June 24, 2015.

Where will I be able to buy weed in Massachusetts?

In all likelihood, the only places in Massachusetts that will be ready to sell weed in July will be currently operating medical marijuana dispensaries that also win a recreational license. That’s because they’ll probably be the only stores in town with any cannabis in stock.

Dispensaries with licenses for recreational sales will be required to keep a reserve of 35 percent of their products on the side for medical marijuana patients. Patients with medical IDs will also be provided a separate line at the stores. Not all medical dispensaries want a recreational license, however.

Adequate supply could be a big problem for the new industry. Cultivators might not have enough time to grow a sufficient amount to meet demand. That could mean shortages and spiking prices soon after retail sales begin, as initially happened in Washington state.

Story Continues Below


Wait, will there still be local weed bans?

Some Massachusetts cities and towns have taken steps to ban pot shops within their borders. Residents in such towns can still legally use cannabis. They’ll just have to go out of town to legally spend their money on any. Of the state’s 351 municipalities, at least 189 have already banned retail marijuana stores.

How, er, highly will weed be taxed?

Massachusetts weed sales will be taxed at 17 percent. Local governments will also be allowed to tack on an additional 3 percent.

How much weed can I possess in Massachusetts?

If you’re in public, you’re only allowed to have up to an ounce on your person. But if you’re at home, you can have up to a 10-ounce stash. If there is any cannabis in your car, it cannot be in view. Stash your weed out of sight in vehicles.

How much weed can I grow in Massachusetts?

You can grow up to six marijuana plants in your home. If there’s more than one adult living in your residence, you are allowed up to 12 plants. That doesn’t keep adding up with more adults in the home, however. It’s just 12 plants, even if you have a house full of stoners.

But there’s some good news. Any marijuana you harvest from your own plants does NOT count towards the 10 ounces you’re already allowed to possess in your home.

The first crop of homegrown pot is coming to harvest inside an apartment in Washington, D.C., August 8, 2015. The female plants, which were grown in large flower tents with LED and daylight lights, need around 60 days before they are ready.

What about commercial grow operations?

Commercial grows will be limited to a maximum of 100,000 square feet. Cultivators will be sorted into one of 11 tiers, by size, and be required to prove they can sell at least 85 percent of the cannabis they grow. This rule is to try to prevent black market diversion. The CCC can demote growers to a lower tier if they can’t prove they can sell 85 percent of their harvest. That means they’d be allowed to grow less marijuana in the future.

Will there be cannabis lounges? How about delivery?

The Cannabis Control Commission initially decided they would issue “social use” licenses for onsite consumption. It’s still unclear, however, if actual smoking will be allowed at those locations. The CCC has promised to have a discussion on that point, and also on issuing cannabis delivery licenses, by October. First, they must consider the effects of secondhand smoke and workplace safety. A decision is due by February 2019. Social consumption and home delivery licenses, if approved, will for a time be issued only to “equity applicants,” meaning those who come from communities disproportionately harmed by the War On Drugs.

Is anyone barred from Massachusetts’ legal cannabis industry?

Anyone with felony drug trafficking convictions other than marijuana will be banned from the legal marijuana industry in Massachusetts.

Could there be snafus and delays?

Are we saying there could be snags in the rollout of Massachusetts weed sales? The short answer is: “Yes, but we hope not.” Chairman Steven Hoffman of the Cannabis Control Commission is trying to tamp down expectations. He says not to expect things to immediately be like they are in other legal states.

“We’re not going to snap our fingers and have Colorado,” Hoffman said, reports WBUR. “What Colorado is now, four years after passing their initiative, we’re not going to be there on July 1. We will get there, but I think it’s just important to, as I said, set expectations that we’re not going to have Colorado on July 1st of 2018.”

 

[Baron23]

Boy, will this shake up the market in the northeast.


State cannabis regulators to begin accepting commercial bids


BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts is taking another step on the road toward commercial sales of recreational marijuana, which are expected to begin on July 1.

On Monday, the Cannabis Control Commission will begin accepting applications for “priority certification” of marijuana businesses.

Operators of medical marijuana dispensaries seeking to expand into commercial sales are eligible for priority certification, as are prospective cannabis businesses that seek to operate in low-income or minority communities that were disproportionately affected by the so-called war on drugs.

According to regulations approved by the commission, those granted priority certification can then apply for commercial licenses on April 16.

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Other applications for retail or cultivation licenses will be accepted later in the spring.

A ballot initiative approved by voters in Nov. 2016 allows for adult use of recreational pot in Massachusetts.

 

[Baron23]

Interest in Massachusetts pot licenses appears strong

BOSTON (AP) — There appears to be no shortage of interest in obtaining commercial marijuana licenses in Massachusetts.

The state’s Cannabis Control Commission reported on Tuesday that more than 200 applications have been started on the agency’s website since a “priority certification” period opened one day earlier.

Operators of registered medical marijuana dispensaries and prospective cannabis businesses seeking to locate in designated economic empowerment zones can seek priority status between now and April 16.

The commission said 274 user accounts had been created as of Tuesday morning, and 218 applications started. Of those, 23 had been completed while others had been withdrawn.

Nearly 60 percent of the applications started were for economic empowerment zones — which refer to areas that in the past had been disproportionately impacted by arrests for marijuana crimes.

 

[Baron23]

Pot panel won't name 20 companies given legal weed priority

Control Commission voted to give 20 existing medical marijuana companies a leg up in the process to secure a coveted recreational license later this year, but refused to say which companies they approved during or immediately after the vote.

“I don't know I see a need for that,” CCC chairman Steve Hoffman told reporters after the public hearing. “We're not hiding anything, we're just trying to do things as efficiently as possible.”

This morning, during a hearing that lasted just over half an hour, the CCC voted to approve priority status for 20 companies already registered with the Department of Public Health to sell medical marijuana. Priority certification gives those companies an advantage over other applicants once the CCC starts approving and rejecting licenses.

During the meeting, CCC commissioner Britte McBride suggested the names of each company be read, but Hoffman said that was unnecessary.

“We will post this list on our website either today or tomorrow,” he said.

The CCC will vote next week on applications seeking priority certification for economic empowerment reasons.

 

[Baron23]

Massachusetts is the new testbed for cannabis legalization

For the past several years, Colorado, Washington and Oregon have served as the testbeds for policies governing state-legal cannabis markets. But now it’s Massachusetts’ turn.

Massachusetts, whose residents voted in 2016 to legalize cannabis for adult use, is on the cusp of implementing experimental, never-before-seen rules that will be closely watched by both the cannabis industry and regulators around the country.

Last month, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission, the regulatory agency tasked with overseeing the rollout and implementation of Massachusetts’ new adult-use cannabis industry, released the final rules that will govern the market.

Massachusetts will be the first state east of the Mississippi to implement a market for legal cannabis. With Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and others on the east coast all seriously considering legislation to fully legalize marijuana in their states, elected officials from across the region will be keeping a close eye on the Bay State and how its program compares with others in the so called “wild west.”

Many of the rules have been seen before (child-resistant packaging requirements; separate licenses for cultivators, producers, and retailers; etc.) and are in effect in existing adult-use states. What’s noteworthy about Massachusetts’ new rules, though, are the ones that have never been tried before and could serve as a blueprint for other states that are seriously considering the full legalization of cannabis.

Perhaps most noteworthy is that Massachusetts is seeking to be the first state to make an attempt at rectifying some of the social injustices that have been a result of marijuana prohibition. It is a fact that the enforcement of cannabis laws has disproportionately affected people of color and people who live in economically disadvantaged communities.

Nearly 80% of people in federal prison for drug offences and almost 60% in state prison are black or latino, despite the fact these groups use and sell drugs at similar rates to whites, according to the Drug Policy Alliance. And yet, for the most part, people of color and people who have convictions for non-violent cannabis offenses have so far been largely excluded from meaningful participation in the new cannabis economy.

Massachusetts’ Cannabis Control Commission is trying to change that through a series of experimental policies that many observers hope will become new standards for states across the country as they implement new legal cannabis markets. First off, the state has eliminated the vertical-integration requirement of the medical program, which mandated that all businesses must produce the products sold in their dispensaries.

Mandated vertical integration requires businesses to spend large amounts of capital to build out large-scale cultivation and production facilities. Coupled with the lack of access to banks and institutional lending, this kind of requirement makes it virtually impossible for anyone without access to wealthy investors to open a cannabis business.

"Craft" cultivators

The commission decided to not only split these into separate cultivation, production, and dispensary licenses, but also to create sub-licenses for cultivation facilities of different sizes. Under these rules, an entrepreneur wanting to open a smaller cultivation/production facility will have to pay some of the lowest registration fees in the country, and will not be required to spend mass sums of capital building out large-scale facilities.

The commission will also allow these small “craft” cultivators to cultivate collectively, meaning that they can pool resources to achieve economies of scale and give them an opportunity to compete against much better funded large-scale operators who typically drive down wholesale prices as cannabis markets mature. Without this ability to cultivate collectively, smaller-scale producers would have a difficult time competing on price on the wholesale market, likely driving these mom-and-pop entrepreneurs out of business.

"Equity applicants"

The commission has also created a new class of applicants, referred to as “equity applicants,” who will be given advantages in the application process not enjoyed by other prospective cannabis entrepreneurs. Equity applicants include people of color, residents from neighborhoods that have been disproportionately impacted by marijuana law enforcement, and those who have previously been convicted of a marijuana felony offense.

Anyone who qualifies as an equity applicant will be allowed to submit their business applications to the commission in April, while all other applicants, aside from existing medical operators, will need to wait until July. Even after this initial grace period, any applications from those who qualify as equity applicants will automatically be moved to the front of the line, a significant advantage in what is expected to be a flood of new business applications.

It is important to note that these provisions to prioritize and provide a path to business ownership for those traditionally targeted by enforcement and excluded from the cannabis economy did not happen in a vacuum. Commissioner Shaleen Title, one of the five commissioners tasked with developing the rules and overseeing implementation of the new adult-use industry, is a veteran drug policy reformer.

Shaleen founded a chapter of NORML/Students for Sensible Drug Policy as an undergrad in college in the early 2000s, worked for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (now Law Enforcement Action Partners), and worked in the industry for pioneering law firm Vicente Sederberg and my company, 4Front. She went on to form a staffing company, THC Staffing, that focused on providing access to the cannabis industry for people of color and became a nationally recognized voice on the importance of equity and inclusion in the cannabis industry.

There is no doubt that without her voice on the commission, these kinds of forward-thinking policies would likely never have been debated, let along adopted as official rules. It goes to show how important it is that people who have spent their careers advocating for sensible marijuana policies have a seat at the table as regulators, and not have these positions left solely to lifelong bureaucrats, attorneys, and businesspeople. That’s what I meant when, in my previous Forbes column, I wrote that having cannabis-reform veterans involved in the industry gives us the opportunity “to not only build a new industry, but a new kind of industry.”

Environmental regulations

Massachusetts will also be studied as a pioneer in other areas of marijuana industry regulation. The state has adopted some of the more stringent environmental regulations in the industry. Indoor cannabis cultivation, the method most commonly used to grow marijuana around the country, is notoriously carbon intensive. It has been estimated that indoor cannabis cultivation releases 4,600 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for every kilogram of marijuana produced, according to a highly cited study released in 2012.

Massachusetts has adopted a Climate Change bill that mandates all agencies must take carbon emissions into account when drafting new regulations, and the Cannabis Control Commission has attempted to push the industry in the state to be among the least polluting in the country.

In particular, the commission has mandated that cultivators not exceed 36 watts per square foot of cultivation space. This requirement will force cultivators to use far more efficient LED lights in indoor cultivation facilities, or to move most cultivation to more energy efficient greenhouses.

Many, myself included, have been skeptical of whether LED lighting technology is sufficient to grow high-quality cannabis, and would have preferred to see different standards, such as a total energy usage per square foot, which factors in energy used by HVAC and other equipment rather than focusing exclusively on lighting. But this does not take away from the fact that the commission is taking steps to mitigate very real environmental concerns around the cultivation of cannabis.

Social consumption

The state will also be closely watched as one of the first in the country to roll out “social consumption” licenses for businesses to allow customers to consume marijuana on-site. These will eventually be made available for dispensaries to include consumption lounges as part of their customer experience, and will also be available to third-party businesses for whom marijuana sales make up less than half of their business.

Within a few years cannabis consumers will not only be able to indulge at their favorite dispensary, but could be able to enjoy cannabis at a cafe, movie theater, or yoga studio. Allowing this kind of social consumption will further breakdown the stigma that cannabis consumers face compared to their alcohol guzzling compatriots, particularly since all legal states currently only allow the purchase of marijuana, but don’t provide places where people can consume legally outside of their homes.

Due to pressure from Gov. Charlie Baker and other elected officials in the state, these licenses will not be issued immediately, but the commission has stated that they plan to revisit them as soon as possible. As a concession for delaying the issuance of social consumption and delivery licenses, Commissioner Title secured a compromise that these licenses will initially only be available to the aforementioned equity applicants.

Legalization's new poster child

These kinds of innovative reforms will put Massachusetts squarely in the spotlight as new states throughout the country consider adopting their own versions of legalization in the coming years.

They will also be on full display to a large number of out-of-state residents when compared to other legal marijuana markets around the country. Colorado has famously seen an increase in tourism since legal marijuana sales began in 2013, but Denver is a difficult city for most people to get to, with no major population centers within a five-hour drive.

California, the largest marijuana market in the country, is a huge state surrounded by other states with their own versions of legal cannabis. Same goes for Oregon and Washington. In contrast, around 60 million people live within driving distance of Massachusetts, including the major metropolitan areas of New York and Philadelphia.

Outside of arguably Las Vegas, no marijuana market in the United States will have the opportunity to directly demonstrate the benefits of cannabis legalization to those visiting from places still living under the oppression of marijuana prohibition.

For the next few years, all eyes will be on the Bay State and its innovative approach to implementing a legal cannabis market.

 

[Baron23]

How expensive will legal marijuana be in Massachusetts when retail stores open?
It's a simple question for a complicated market.

For states that have legalized recreational marijuana, the new authorized markets have carried the promise of increasingly cheap weed. In Colorado, wholesale cannabis prices have dropped roughly 35 percent since their 2015 peak. In Oregon, some pot shops reportedly sell grams of weed for less than a glass of craft beer.

Massachusetts residents will likely have to wait awhile before they see anything similar.

State regulators say the initial market will be “sparse” when the first licensed retail pot shops open in July, due to both the cautious rollout process and widespread municipal bans on marijuana businesses. As a result, experts expect initial prices to be expensive — and stay that way for a while.

“I would expect that we would see really high prices to begin with,” Kris Krane, the co-founder of 4Front, a cannabis industry consultancy firm, told Boston.com. “There’s going to be a shortage.”

For an eighth of an ounce of weed, Krane said before-tax prices could start out around $60 to $70 — compared to an average of around $50 on the black market — and remain at that level for up to six months to a year. Of course, sales will also be subject to a combined tax by the state and local governments of up to 20 percent.

“It’s really simple supply and demand,” Krane said. “There’s not going to be enough supply.”

A similar dynamic has played out to some degree in every state that has gone through the process of implementing a legal retail or medical marijuana market. Because cannabis is (controversially) still an illegal Schedule 1 drug at the federal level, companies and individuals are prohibited from shipping it across state lines. That makes it difficult for each new state market — working in isolation from each other — to grow enough product to meet demand in its early days. And weeks. And months.

Nine states and Washington, D.C. have voted to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana. And the states that have already implemented their markets have experienced initial price surges, followed by broad declines in price. In Colorado, an ounce of marijuana (the legal limit for public possession in Massachusetts) can regularly be found for $150, according to Krane.

Massachusetts might not ever make it to that point, but Krane expects prices to eventually stabilize in the $40 range for an eighth of an ounce.

“That may be a little higher than you see some places out west, but I think $40 to $45 eighths will become the norm,” he said, adding that once large-scale greenhouses and facilities get up and running several years down the road, the state could even see eighths as low as $25.

It’s not a question of if prices go down, but when. That said, the decline will likely be gradual due to Massachusetts’ growing capacity, which — for reasons ranging from space to weather to the delayed implementation of its medical marijuana industry — doesn’t stack up against the likes of California, Colorado, Oregon, or Washington.

Jim Borghesani, a former spokesman for the Massachusetts legalization campaign and now a consultant in the industry, says that Nevada, which also voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2016, provides “a compelling predictive example” for what the Bay State might expect in the next 12 to 18 months.

Even though it passed its legalization ballot measure the same day as Massachusetts, the Silver State decided to implement its adult-use recreational market last July. However, the industry wasn’t ready for the surge in demand.

“Nevada’s supply chain was hampered by cultivation shortages and a flawed distribution licensing process,” Borghesani said.

Nine months later, prices in the state are still relatively high. The Bay State should expect a similar future, according to Borghesani.

“Massachusetts will likely see supply constraints due mainly to a relatively immature medical cannabis industry and a time lag in getting adult-use cultivation operations licensed and running,” he said. “The results will likely be the same as Nevada—higher prices until supply catches up with demand.”

Massachusetts’ top pot regulating agency, the Cannabis Control Commission, says it is unable to make a meaningful prediction on the early stage pricing. But officials noted that the commission has instituted a number of safeguards aimed at preventing potentially high price levels from perpetuating the illicit market.

Krane says substantially higher prices created problems in Oregon, which had abundant black market cannabis — even compared to other states. The price disparity was so great that consumers opted for the black market over the legal stores. The state then responded by licensing “basically…anyone who qualified” and now struggles with oversupply, which can also facilitate illicit markets.

Krane says it was an overreaction to a predictable early stage problem and the CCC has looked to preempt a similar situation with regulations ranging from “seed-to-sale” tracking to strict licensing and verification standards. Krane’s advice to Massachusetts — officials and consumers like — is to keep the early high prices in perspective.

“By and large, this is very normal,” he said. “The business is responding to market conditions. It will change, but it will take some time.”

 

[mitchgo]

These Mass prices are unbelievable. As in I literally cannot believe anyone would pay these prices. I am intimately aware of legal and grey-market pricing in New England and that shit right there is insane.

 

[Baron23]

"“The illicit market is still going to be there, so they’re really just sticking their heads in the sand,” said Maggie Kinsella, spokeswoman for The Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, a cannabis advocacy group based in Reading. “They’re not keeping it out of their towns. They’re just keeping legal stores out. People are still going to go to the next town over.”​

Ain't that the truth. I have to admire Nevada. Those people know how to use money to make money. What...its was maybe a year or so from state approval to the industry being open for business?

Retail shops likely not ready to sell marijuana in Massachusetts July 1

Although commercial sales of marijuana will be allowed beginning July 1, most Massachusetts residents will find it difficult to find a retail shop open for business that day.

That’s in part because, as of May 8, nearly two-thirds of the 351 Massachusetts cities and towns had either banned or implemented a moratorium on the local retail sales of adult-use marijuana, also known as recreational marijuana, according to data compiled by GateHouse Media, the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Attorney General’s Office.

“It’s a whole new industry with multiple concerns and considerations,” said Geoff Beckwith, executive director and CEO of the Massachusetts Municipal Association based in Boston.

Local decisions so far signal widespread caution and rejection of commercial sales, one of the latest iterations of adult-use marijuana legalization. Voters approved adult-use marijuana by referendum in 2016 and the state has since established a series of regulations and guidelines.

July 1 marks the start of commercial sales, meaning cannabis products will be available to retail consumers similarly to alcohol, although on-site and public consumption will continue to be prohibited. Much to the chagrin of cannabis advocates, at least 74 communities have already taken pre-emptive measures and permanently banned such sales.

“The illicit market is still going to be there, so they’re really just sticking their heads in the sand,” said Maggie Kinsella, spokeswoman for The Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, a cannabis advocacy group based in Reading. “They’re not keeping it out of their towns. They’re just keeping legal stores out. People are still going to go to the next town over.”

At least 142 cities and towns have also hit the pause button and approved moratoriums, allowable under state law. The moratoriums are temporary, meaning future sales are possible and even likely. For towns where the local electorate approved the referendum in 2016, implementing a full ban would require a new ballot vote, which is time consuming and potentially costly.

The moratoriums, while not everlasting, nonetheless buy local officials some extra time.

“It gives our Ordinance and Rules Committee some time to figure out what this is going to look like locally and where it should be allowed,” said Diane P. LeBlanc, Waltham City Council president. “Waltham wants the time that is allowed by law.”

Waltham approved adult-use marijuana for the state with 55 percent of the vote, and is on the brink of passing a moratorium that would prohibit commercial sales until Dec. 31.

Beckwith said the temporary bans are not necessarily meant to stymie commercial sales, but rather give municipalities more time to hold public hearings, establish local zoning ordinances and decide whether to limit how many retail shops can open.

Some municipalities have already taken such measures and the results vary. Brewster has limited the number of retail locations to one. Uxbridge will allow two, while Medway has banned retail businesses all together, but will allow other types of marijuana-related businesses, including growing and testing facilities. Others, like Pittsfield, have embraced the new industry and will allow 35.

Cities and towns can also decide whether to assess a new local tax, which would generate revenue on cannabis sales. Advocates argue the revenue could help bolster local economies, although Beckwith is less bullish, saying the new industry could actually end up costing more than it’s worth.

“This isn’t going to be balancing any local community’s budget, and overall we think there will be an increased need for training of police officers,” Beckwith said. “The increased costs to communities will clearly be there - whether a local sales tax covers the [costs] is still up in the air.”

Beyond action taken in the public sector, how quickly each community sees new cannabis businesses is largely dependent on how quickly the private sector can get its ducks in a row. Aspiring adult-use marijuana entrepreneurs must reach local agreements and go through a series of regulatory hurdles to obtain a license from the Cannabis Control Commission at the state level.

The interest is clearly there, as the commission had received 533 license applications as of May 8. Fifty-seven of those applicants had submitted at least a portion of required documents and only 14 were seeking retail licenses. The state cannot start issuing licenses until June 1. How quickly that translates into actual retail sales on Main Street, however, will likely take time.

“There’s going to be a lot of exuberance, but retail is not an easy business,” Beckwith said. “A lot of it is going to rest on the competency of these smaller businesses and how well startups can do in an emerging marketplace.”

 

[Baron23]

"The biggest issue is reluctance from local government. About two-thirds of towns and cities in Massachusetts have banned recreational sales.​

No problem....no play, no pay. No allow MJ in your municipality, then no tax money for you...and no soup for you, either!! LOL


Massachusetts will get fewer than 12 dispensaries when recreational marijuana legalization begins

The state of Massachusetts is launching recreational marijuana sales in July, which is a cause for celebration for many. But you may want to wait a few months before you buy into the hype, writes Joseph Misulonas.

A new report from the Boston Globe says that many marijuana industry experts are predicting a slow rollout of recreational sales this summer. In fact, some experts believe there will be fewer than 12 licensed recreational dispensaries open this July.

“We’re just at the starting line,” said David Torrisi, the president of the Commonwealth Dispensary Association. “It’s going to take 18 to 24 months until there’s a robust retail marketplace. People who want to get into this industry need to be in it for the long haul, because it’s going to be a slog getting it established.”

The biggest issue is reluctance from local government. About two-thirds of towns and cities in Massachusetts have banned recreational sales. The cities that will allow recreational sales are also putting up restrictive policies and regulations that are making it difficult for dispensaries to ensure compliance. Some are even demanding cannabis companies make large payments to local government to get an agreement to operate, which is possibly against state law that says towns can't charge more than three percent of a dispensary's revenue.

Many of these policies go against state regulations. Massachusetts is making a strong effort to get minority and low-income individuals involved in the newly legal cannabis industry, but cities are imposing restrictions and placing higher barriers of entry making many of the state's policies irrelevant.

In addition to government interference, local businesses are reluctant to take part as well. Banks are hesitant to help out, which has been a problem in other states. And landlords are also imposing barriers as well.

All this is to say that come this July, don't be surprised to hear complaints about limited legal cannabis supply in Massachusetts.

 

[Baron23]

205 Priority Applicants Vying For Recreational Marijuana Licenses Can Move Into Next Phase


The Cannabis Control Commission on Tuesday wrapped up its review of priority applicants for recreational marijuana businesses.

The commission put registered medical dispensaries (RMDs) with operational and provisional certificates granted by the Department of Public Health, as well as so-called economic empowerment applicants, at the head of the line for the coveted industry licenses. In all, the commission received 320 applications for priority status.

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Of those, 205 were approved and 115 were denied.

Those who were denied by the commission often missed the April 16 deadline, or failed to meet the requirements for consideration.

Of the applicants with priority status who have been given the green light, 82 are RMDs, while 123 are economic empowerment applicants.

The applicants now need to submit various “packets” to get their licenses. Once completed packets are received by the commission, candidates must also pass a background check before the group makes its final decisions. Part of the deal, too, is that applicants need to have a "letter of agreement" signed by the community where its proposed cannabis business will be located.

Thirty-five applicants have submitted the required packets and now await background checks. Of those candidates, 25 are RMDs licensed by the DPH, five are economic empowerment applicants and five are general applicants.

The packets include the following: an application of intent; information for their background checks; a management and operations profile.

Following the Cannabis Control Commission meeting this week, Chairman Steven Hoffman fielded questions from reporters addressing a number of topics about the licensing process going forward. He also spoke about other industry topics, such as concerns around cannabis supply and metrics for success.

Below is a transcript of those questions and Hoffman's answers:

Reporter: Chairman, we've talked a bit about the issue of supply in July, and you’ve talked about you're expecting a sort of sparse market. But where things stand? Will the RMDs that convert and the recreational shops that open, will they have enough marijuana in July to supply the demand?

Chairman Steven Hoffman: We don't know. What we do know is that we're working with the Department of Public Health to ensure that they're able to move inventory from what is currently [a] RMD to the recreational adult-use market.

We have put restrictions in terms of how much has to be kept for medical use, but that's the process we're working ... with DPH right now to allow that transfer. We are going to give guidance over the next week or two for the entirety of our seed-to-sale system, including how that initial inventory gets set up. And so, we're just waiting to have everything worked out with the Department of Public Health. So I can give you more specificity — probably over the next week or two — but I think we'll be able to manage that process.

Reporter: How will we be able to measure success, say by mid-July, end of July. What are you going to be looking at?

Hoffman: Well, we're working right now — it's a good question and I'm going to remind my executive director — we're working on the set of metrics that we're going to hold ourselves accountable to, [that] we're going to publish, and we're going to let people make their own judgments in terms of our success.

Our view is that we want to hit our deadlines, which we have done thus far. We want to run a fair and effective and thorough licensing process. We want to make sure that anybody that’s set up for business is somebody that we are comfortable will be successful and run a professional business.

And we'll talk about the metrics going forward in terms of things like how much tax revenue we're generating. The accessibility. Obviously, metrics of public health and public safety. So, we're working on that right now. Again, we'll share that. Our intent was to actually have that done by the end of May. So I think we're hopefully on that timeline. So we'll go through that. But it's the things that you would expect. But right now our focus is running, as I said, a thorough and effective licensing — and fair — licensing process.

Reporter: Any progress on banking?

Hoffman: I continue to work that issue. I met with some of the Association of Credit Unions a couple of weeks ago. We have a meeting coming up with the Mass Bankers Association. People have reached out to me that have non-banking solutions that we're not going to recommend or not, but I want to understand what they're going to offer to the marketplace, so I feel like we're making progress, but I don't have a solution.

Reporter: Where do things stand in terms of regulations for Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket?

Hoffman: I'm not totally familiar, so I'm going to defer to [Cannabis Control Commission Executive Director Shawn Collins].

Shawn Collins: We're folding into the final regulations, as far as allowing applicants to have product on the island, with a disclaimer that it had not been tested. So they're folded into our final reg[ulations]s.

Reporter: There's been some concern about the ability of the economic empowerment applicants to make it through the municipal part of this process. Is the commission thinking about doing anything to make that easier for them, including perhaps giving guidance to municipalities?

Hoffman: Well, I think both. Giving guidance to the commissioners — we've been meeting with both cities and towns and with regional planning associations on a regular basis, and we'll continue to do that around the state. We're also structuring a social equity program, part of which is training and part of which is helping people get through the licensing process. So we are going to offer whatever assistance we can.

Ultimately, as I've said many times, it is at the discretion of cities and towns. So we can’t mandate that. But we certainly can talk to make sure that they understand how our regulations are structured and the incentives in those regulations, and then offer some assistance to people going through that process with the cities and towns.

 

[Baron23]

Marijuana licenses expected in early June

The Cannabis Control Commission will get the legal green light to begin issuing business licenses at the end of this week, but the agency’s top regulator suggested Tuesday it may be two weeks before the commission begins approving licenses.

Under the state’s marijuana law, the CCC must wait until June 1 before it can issue licenses for businesses it expects to begin opening on July 1. In anticipation of June 1, prospective businesses have started 834 license applications and 84 have begun submitting partial application information to the commission.

CCC Chairman Steven Hoffman said Tuesday that he expects next week to be “action-packed” for the commission, but was unable to say whether the CCC would begin reviewing and issuing license applications next week.

“I think that it is probably premature for me to answer that question. We’re working hard,” Hoffman told reporters after the CCC’s weekly meeting when asked if the commission expects to begin reviewing applications next week. “We’re doing our work but we are also dependent upon getting the feedback in terms of background checks ... we’re required to get feedback from the cities and towns that their requirements have been met (and) I just can’t comment on their timeline.”

Hoffman added, “I can say, for sure, we’re hitting our timelines in terms of the processing we can do ourselves as opposed to third parties.”

In total, 84 prospective marijuana businesses have submitted at least one “packet” of the application to the CCC and 38 have submitted all four necessary packets. The CCC has begun its review of those applications.

Applying for a marijuana business license is a multi-step process and the application is made up of four “packets” that the applicant must submit to the CCC -- an application of intent, a background check, a management and operations profile, and payment of the application fee. If the application is approved, payment of the license fee becomes the fifth and final step in the process.

Executive Director Shawn Collins said Tuesday that the first step in the process is to make sure what has been submitted is complete. Then the CCC begins the background check process through a vendor, a process which could take up to 15 days, and asks the city or town in which the applicant hopes to operate to certify within 60 days whether the applicant has cleared local hurdles, Collins said. He said the CCC tries “to get those out as quickly as possible.”

From the time the CCC determines an application to be complete, the agency has 90 days to either approve or deny the license application.

Of the 38 applications already under review by the CCC’s licensing staff, 16 are seeking to cultivate marijuana, 10 are hoping to act as retailers, eight want to manufacture marijuana products, three of the applications are to operate a research lab and one person has applied to transport marijuana, according to data presented at Tuesday’s meeting.

Once it begins reviewing license applications, the CCC plans to alternate between considering registered marijuana dispensary (RMD) companies and applications from participants in the CCC’s economic empowerment program.

 

[Baron23]

Massachusetts Regulators Can Begin Issuing Cannabis Licenses

BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts’ recreational marijuana industry could begin taking shape in the coming weeks.


Friday marks the first day that state regulators can issue licenses to pot shops and other businesses allowed under the voter-approved law that legalized adult use of marijuana.


RELATED STORY
Massachusetts to Begin Taking Applications for Cannabis Businesses
The Cannabis Control Commission was not, however, expected to immediately announce any decisions.

The first shops could open their doors in Massachusetts on July 1, though how many and where they might be located remains to be determined.
Friday is also the day that any prospective operator who was not eligible for priority review by the commission can apply for a license to operate a retail establishment.

The first shops could open their doors in Massachusetts on July 1, though how many and where they might be located remains to be determined.

All applicants must clear background checks from regulators, and many cities and towns have imposed prohibitions or restrictions on marijuana businesses.

 

[Baron23]

Here's everything you need to know about Massachusetts' new marijuana laws

Massachusetts is set to launch recreational marijuana sales next month, which certainly has cannabis fans excited seeing as they're the first state to allow sales east of the Mississippi River. But what exactly will the new laws entail when they go into effect next month? Don't worry, we have you covered, writes Joseph Misulonas.

First of all, while we know legal sales will begin next month, we don't actually know when. The state is working to license dispensaries to sell legal marijuana, but it's possible it will take a few weeks into July before any stores actually receive their license. So don't plan your entire Fourth of July party around legal marijuana if you live in Massachusetts.

We also know that the state will institute a 17 percent sales tax on all marijuana sales, and local governments are also allowed to add an additional tax up to three percent. So there could be up to 20 percent in sales tax added onto your cannabis purchases, depending on where you live.

If you're 21 or older, you're allowed up to one ounce of marijuana in your possession if you're in public. You're allowed up to 10 ounces in your residence. Massachusetts will also be allowed to have up to six marijuana plants per person in their residences, or 12 total plants per home. Public consumption of marijuana remains illegal.

Dispensaries will also be required to receive independent laboratory testing of their products to ensure their quality and safety for consumers.

And that's about it. So starting sometime next month, Massachusetts residents will be able to enjoy cannabis freely.

 

[Baron23]

First Massachusetts marijuana business license awarded to Sira Naturals

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission granted the state's first marijuana business license, allowing Sira Naturals, Inc. to move ahead with cultivation at its existing Milford facility.

Sira Naturals, which currently uses the facility for medical marijuana, was granted a provisional license through a unanimous vote of the five-member commission on Thursday.

The company was quick to note in a press release that it's the first to receive a marijuana business license on the US eastern seaboard.

Shawn Collins, the commission's executive director, said the company plans to have the Milford facility fully operational - 20,000 square feet -- on the recreational marijuana side within four months.

The facility currently has 10,000 square feet for growing medical marijuana. The company says it has enough inventory to ensure medical marijuana patient demand is always fulfilled and any excess can be shifted to the recreational market.

The facility's hours of operation will be 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, according to Collins.

The company provided the commission, the state agency tasked with overseeing the new marijuana industry, with a security plan, inventory and quality control procedures, as well as record-keeping procedures.

The commission will grant the final license to Sira Naturals after staffers inspect the facility to ensure they're meeting their goals and procedures, Collins said.

"This historic milestone is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our exceptional team and to the countless cannabis industry stakeholders throughout the Commonwealth whose passion to legalize cannabis made this dream a reality," Sira Naturals CEO Michael Dundas said in a statement.

"This is an exciting first step on the path toward making our premium cannabis products available to a wider audience than ever before," he added.

The company, which first started in 2013, has also applied for research and transportation licenses, but Thursday's vote was limited to the granting of the provisional cultivation-only license.

While Sira Naturals has medical marijuana dispensaries in Somerville, Cambridge and Needham, it has not yet applied for a license to sell recreational marijuana at those locations.

The commission has not approved any applications for retail pot shops, meaning that legal sales of recreational marijuana are still a ways off.

Companies seeking to open retail pot shops must not only receive approval from the Cannabis Control Commission, but they also go through the local approval process at the city or town level.

Massachusetts voters in November 2016 approved a ballot question broadly legalizing recreational marijuana for adults 21 years and older.

 

[Baron23]

Ah, just the anatomy of yet another screwed up state government roll out of a program. MA folks...just don't die any time soon and eventually you will see your rec market open for business.


Sorting out the holdup with Massachusetts’ recreational cannabis rollout

An unofficial July 1 target date set by Massachusetts cannabis regulators for the kickoff of recreational sales has come and gone, and it’s still anybody’s guess when the adult-use industry will actually launch.

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission may have awarded the state’s first recreational cultivation license in June and the first rec retail license on Monday, but a slew of challenges beyond licensing still face the state’s marijuana businesses, including:

1. Troubles for the less capitalized

The delay has mostly hurt less experienced, less capitalized businesses in the state, even forcing some to abandon plans and investments, industry observers say.

But more experienced entrepreneurs, particularly medical marijuana businesses that survived the state’s elongated MMJ rollout, have planned accordingly.

“The holding costs can be extremely burdensome, especially if you don’t own the property and have to pay rent,” observed Marc Rosenfeld, CEO of CommCan, a medical cannabis business with an operational cultivation site and plans to open three dispensaries in the next several months.


The company is looking to start all three retail places as medical first and convert them to recreational later, Rosenfeld noted.
2. Local factors behind the delay

The most common hurdles have appeared at the local level, where many municipalities have been slow to move on zoning regulations, special local permits and so-called Host Community Agreements (HCAs).

Recreational applicants, whether they be existing medical operators or new businesses, must obtain special local permits from the towns or cities they’re located in before they can complete state recreational applications.

However, a cannabis business can’t apply for a local municipality’s special permit without the town or city already having zoning rules in place, said Jason Sidman, president of Sanctuary Medicinals, an operational MMJ business in Littleton, Mass.

The problem is, many municipalities are far from finalizing those MJ business zoning regulations.

An example of this issue involves Sira Naturals, which recently won Massachusetts’ first recreational cultivation license.

The company has MMJ dispensaries in Somerville and Cambridge, which are both still determining their adult-use zoning regulations and aren’t expected to finish until September, noted Sira Naturals CEO Michael Dundas.

Once Somerville and Cambridge finalize their rec zoning regulations and provide the company with a special local permit, Sira will then be able to apply for state adult-use retail licenses.

Dundas expects the process to take 60-90 days after the September clarification of local zoning issues to receive the state recreational retail license.

He predicted it will be wintertime before Sira opens a retail rec outlet.

As for the Host Community Agreements, they’re another part of the official state recreational cannabis application and a unique Massachusetts requirement levied on MJ businesses and other entities, like gaming outlets and universities.

HCAs, which are negotiated between a cannabis business and a municipality, focus on how much money the MJ company is expected to pay to offset costs the city or town may incur because of the firm’s presence.

This could include things like the cost of extra police or installing traffic signs or lights.

HCA details can take a long time to clarify, and negotiations cannot usually even begin until a cannabis company has already obtained its special local permit from the town or city, pointed out Sanctuary Medicinals’ Sidman.

3. Attorney general’s moratorium decision

Massachusetts’ cannabis industry could also be staring down more delays because of a recent decision by state Attorney General Maura Healey that might give municipalities power to extend moratoriums on marijuana businesses.

Under the current state law, in places where a majority of residents opposed the 2016 legalization referendum, local executive boards can enact a cannabis business moratorium or ban. In cities or towns where a majority of residents supported legalization, a moratorium or ban can be passed only by a local referendum.

The attorney general previously decided municipalities that hadn’t already banned cannabis businesses couldn’t extend moratoriums on them beyond Dec. 31.

But the AG reversed her decision, granting the town of Mansfield its request to extend its moratorium until June 2019. That potentially gives other municipalities precedent to do the same.

4. The laboratory dilemma

Another key stumbling block involves the fact that no marijuana testing labs have been licensed for Massachusetts’ adult-use market. Under state law, recreational cannabis must be tested by an independent lab before it can be sold in stores.

The Cannabis Control Commission, however, has decided to give review priority to testing labs.

Sanctuary Medicinals’ Sidman observed he was hopeful that the first lab licenses could be awarded this month.

With all the uncertainty, forecasts vary for when recreational sales will actually begin.

“As far as retail goes, I don’t think we’ll see a ton of licensing for a couple of months – late August, early September. And then you’ll see retail dispensaries start to open soon thereafter,” Sidman said.

Adam Fine, who heads the Boston office of the Vicente Sederberg law firm, said he’s optimistic recreational sales will begin in Massachusetts before the end of the summer. He noted there are a few operational medical marijuana companies with completed recreational applications already under review.

For his part, Sira Naturals’ Dundas believes that by the first of the year, “we should see a pretty good recreational marketplace here.”

 

[Baron23]

Marijuana is legal in Massachusetts, but the feds are still looking to prosecute cases here in these three areas

US Attorney Andrew Lelling, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, on Tuesday pointed to three marijuana-related areas his office plans to focus on as the state keeps moving into the era of legal pot.

The Cannabis Control Commission, the new state agency tasked with overseeing the burgeoning industry, has started issue the licenses needed for retail pot shops to open in Massachusetts.

The commission was created through a voter-approved state law legalizing marijuana, but the drug remains illegal at the federal level.

Lelling, in a statement building on previous comments he's made about enforcement of federal law and marijuana, reiterated his focus on fighting the opioid crisis while outlining areas for potential marijuana-related prosecution.

"Because I have a constitutional obligation to enforce the laws passed by Congress, I will not effectively immunize the residents of the Commonwealth from federal marijuana enforcement," he said. "My office's resources, however, are primarily focused on combatting the opioid epidemic that claims thousands of lives in the Commonwealth each year."

He added that the three areas for potential marijuana prosecutions will include "overproduction," "targeted sales to minors," and "organized crime and interstate transportation of drug proceeds."

"Overproduction" of marijuana could lead to illegal sales in nearby states that haven't yet legalized marijuana for recreational use, according to Lelling. "These out-of-state sales are nearly always cash transactions and so often involve federal tax fraud designed to hide the illicit cash or its true source."

Lelling said he expected marijuana use among minors to increase, and the "targeted sale of marijuana to minors may warrant federal prosecution."

The law passed by Massachusetts voters in November 2016 broadly legalized use of recreational marijuana for adults ages 21 and over.

Lelling added that he also plans to keep prosecuting gangs like MS-13 for distributing drugs, even if the substances are legal at the state level.

"To that end, federal investigators will continue to police the Commonwealth for incoming or outgoing shipments of cash as well as use of the federal banking system," he said.

 

[Baron23]

Makes one wonder how Nevada did it so expeditiously. Those people understand commerce and how to make money! haha

It’s halfway through July. Why aren’t any recreational marijuana dispensaries open in Massachusetts yet?

"The big hold up really is on the local level."

July 1 always symbolized the starting gun for recreational marijuana sales in Massachusetts, but that never meant the industry would be quick out of the gate.

Yet more than two weeks later, it’s still uncertain when the state’s first adult-use pot shop will actually open.

“I don’t want to put a date on it,” says Sam Barber, the president of Cultivate, a medical marijuana dispensary in Leicester that was issued the state’s first retail license for recreational sales earlier this month.

Cultivate obtained another license last Thursday, allowing the company to grow marijuana for recreational purposes at its existing Route 9 facility, where it already grows and sells the substance for medicinal purposes. Barber told Boston.com that the cultivation license is “another step,” but said it could be awhile until they open.

After initially giving an estimate of “a few weeks,” Barber told reporters earlier this month that it would likely be September before they could begin retail operations. And while the company does need to pass a few final state-required inspections, the reason for the delay is mostly out of their control, which is why Barber is now reluctant to give any estimate on an opening date.

“At this point, we’re just focusing on making sure we’ve done everything that they’ve asked from us,” he said.

For one, even once Cultivate does have that final go-ahead, all recreational marijuana products still must first be tested by an independent laboratory — and no such labs have been licensed yet by the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.

Steve Hoffman, the commission’s chairman, told reporters Thursday that the agency had received its first completed license application from a testing facility. Hoffman said the commission could vote to issue the lab a provisional license as early as its next meeting on July 26. With three labs already operating with the state’s medical marijuana program, Hoffman has said that once they get their licenses they should be “pretty much ready to go.”

But that still means it likely won’t be until at least August that any marijuana sales can begin.

What’s up with the overall delay

As of Thursday, the commission had issued a total of five licenses to two companies, Cultivate and Sira Naturals, a Milford-based cultivation facility. They are in the process of reviewing 29 other applications and had 39 awaiting review. Hoffman says the commission is working as quickly as they can to approve licenses, but there’s a simple reason Cultivate still stands alone as the only provisionally licensed retail business in the state.

“[The commission] can’t act on applications that they don’t have,” said Jim Borghesani, the former spokesman for the 2016 legalization campaign and a cannabis industry consultant.

Nearly 200 communities in Massachusetts continue to have either outright bans or moratoriums on recreational marijuana businesses within their borders. Attorney General Maura Healey recently ruled that temporary moratoriums — designed to give towns time to set up local regulations, such as zoning — could be extended through June 2019.

And even cities and towns that do allow recreational marijuana shops are dragging their feet, according to Borghesani.

“The big hold up really is on the local level,” he said.

Prospective adult-use pot businesses — even ones already operating as medical marijuana companies — have to obtain a “host community agreement” form signed off on by local officials. And, under state law, communities aren’t held to any timetable for reviewing the permits, which Borghesani says has resulted in unreasonable delays in the licensing process.

Municipalities can also require so-called impact fees from prospective businesses, which are supposed to be “reasonably related to the costs imposed” by a marijuana establishment operating in town.

Two state senators recently wrote to state regulators concurring with Borghesani’s concern about the “widespread” practice of towns using the host community agreements, including excessive impact fees, as a “form of prohibition.”

The Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents the state’s cities and towns, has pushed back against those criticisms, arguing that municipalities are trying to do their “due diligence” on how to approach a new industry that still conflicts with federal law. Borghesani thinks they’ve had more than enough time.

“As soon as this was passed in 2016, towns should have started the process of figuring out where they were going to zone,” he said, noting that zoning for controlled substances has been something local communities have governed “for decades.”

Massachusetts also experienced lags in the rollout of its medical marijuana industry, which now has a total of 36 registered dispensaries. And though for different reasons, those delays may now be having somewhat of a carryover effect, even when shops do begin getting online.

“It’s not like Colorado where they already had a hundred medical dispensaries,” Barber said. “Massachusetts is still growing into that medical market.”

Industry experts have said they expect a supply shortage in the early months of the state’s nascent recreational market, in part due to its relatively underdeveloped medical marijuana industry. Barber is aware of the increasingly pent-up demand.

For that reason, he says his company is just focusing on ramping up their production for once the the labs and licensing are finally straightened out. And sorry eager pot-smokers, even when pressed, Barber still wouldn’t say when exactly that could be.

“I can’t give you the date,” he reiterated.

 

[Baron23]

excer5pt related to MJ is shown below. Follow link in article title for full article.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling Talks Marijuana, Immigration And Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Braude: Can we move to marijuana... You said the other day and I hope I got you right. I just want to confirm, you won't immunize people, but you will say that we're not going to be prosecuting buyers and sellers of small amounts. Do I have you right there?

Lelling: Yeah, I think that's roughly right.

Braude: Were you are more precise because the attorney general is softening or because you were sick of being asked the same question and you wanted to give people as much notice as you felt they deserved?

Lelling: It's more the latter. It wasn't because of any signal out of D.C. about the Attorney General softening on this. The reason why I did it is that the July 1 deadline - the July 1 date - for the Cannabis Control Commission beginning to issue licenses to recreational dispensaries. That date had passed. And so it seemed like it was in the public interest to try and give a little bit clarity instead of being coy. I mean look you know as I've said a bunch of times you know 2000 people last year in Massachusetts didn't die from smoking a joint right they died from opioids. All my resources are targeting opioids. So why make it harder than it needs to be.

Braude: Well if that's the case one of the things the chair of the Cannabis Control Commission, Hoffman, who been here a couple times said he's concerned because no banks are buying in. So, you sell 20,000 dollars of marijuana in small amounts you've got to carry cash to either under your mattress or what. I don't even know what they do with it. Can you make the same assurance to bankers that if you collect money from a retail outlet that is selling small amounts to quote you that I'm not going to be prosecuting you either?

Lelling: I can't. The reason why I can't is that banks are heavily regulated probably by two or three different regulators. Besides anything I might do on the criminal side so I'm not going to go there. I mean you have you have Treasury you have the FDIC. Think of the Office of the Comptroller. There might be others. That's not necessarily my area of expertise. So, I've shied away from that because it's so regulated that the regulators I think need to speak to that first.

Braude: But is that on your radar?

Lelling: Is what on my radar?

Braude: The possibility of prosecuting a bank should they choose to?

Lelling: It's something we would consider all and I'll tell you why. The problem that I'm afraid of is the interstate movement of large amounts of drug proceeds. So marijuana trafficking whether done legally under state law or not can be a source of revenue for organized crime. It can be pursued illegally out of state and the drugs moved into state. It can be pursued illegally under Massachusetts law and move the money out of state.

 

[Baron23]

Lynn's first medical marijuana facility and recreational pot shop set to open this fall


LYNN — The city’s first medical marijuana facility and pot shop is set to open in October on the Lynnway.

Newton-based Massachusetts Patient Foundation (MPF), which operates dispensaries in Oregon and Colorado, has signed a host agreement with the city to open a medical marijuana dispensary at the 4,631-square-foot Cooper-Lewis building, which would also contain a recreational pot shop.

The company still has to have its special permit approved by the City Council for the recreational component to the facility. Its special permit was approved for medical marijuana retail sales last August.

Under the host agreement, MPF will provide the city with 6 percent of annual gross revenues.

Joseph Lekach, MPF’s cofounder, said the company will have its sales ready inspection done by the Department of Public Health in September, with the facility expected to be open for medical patients in October.

Medical users, who have to present a card issued by a doctor, will have access to the entire facility and there will be separation for recreational customers. There are a separate set of regulations that come with the medical side of the building.

In Massachusetts, only people with certain debilitating medical conditions qualify for a medical marijuana card, including those with cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or multiple sclerosis.

Lekach said there will always be 35 percent of the inventory designed for medical patients only, which guarantees that they never run out of supplies for them. Marijuana will be the same price for both adult use and medical customers, but he said the big difference is taxation.

Joseph Lekach, cofounder of Massachusetts Patient Foundation, stands in the dispensary and display area of the new medical marijuana facility and recreational pot shop at 491 Lynnway.

Adult use, or recreational, customers are taxed at 20 percent, while medical customers are taxed at zero percent, he said.

“We’re excited,” said Lekach. “I think that Lynn is a city we’d love to work in. It’s going to be excellent because we get to serve the patients and community as a whole and we’re honored to be the first one.”

Lekach said their cultivation and processing site is in Fitchburg at the former Bayer pharmaceutical campus.

Lekach said MPF is leasing the building at 487-491 Lynnway, where significant renovations are underway. Work includes fixing walls, flooring, closing up skylights and putting in new lighting, electricity and plumbing. He declined to give an exact cost but said the company was paying “give or take” about $500,000 to renovate the building.

Initially MPF was approved for a medical clinic, before recreational use was on the table.

Lekach said the recreational component could also appeal to medical patients who would otherwise not get medical cards, but could benefit from cannabis use, or for those people who have qualifying debilitating conditions but don’t want to be entered into the state medical database.

The Council also approved another medical marijuana clinic in the city last year. Old World Remedies, a Marblehead company, plans to operate a shop on Western Avenue, but is trying to find a place to grow the marijuana. The company also has intent for a recreational shop at the site, according to James Lamanna, the city’s attorney.

They have their approval in hand, but can’t operate because they have to grow on the medical side, Lamanna said.

In 2016, the City Council approved a plan to bring two medical marijuana clinics to the city. Ward 6 City Councilor Peter Capano said he voted against limiting those two clinics to his ward, but the council decided in a majority vote to put them there.

“I was opposed to it going there,” Capano said of MPF’s clinic. “I thought the way they picked these zones for the dispensaries was not fair and it should have been opened up to the whole city. Having said that, they’re there now and I’m hoping it works out.”

Capano said he doesn’t like having recreational shops in his ward either — as many as six recreational pot shops can open in the city but can’t be near schools.

“Ward 6 can’t be the marijuana capital of the city,” Capano said.

In 2012, Massachusetts voters approved making marijuana legal for medical use and in 2016, pot for recreational use was approved at the polls.

 

[Baron23]

There is some lab shopping in MD also...not for microbes but for THC % results....and this is from a head grower of one of our 15 licensed cultivators.

State refuses to referee marijuana testing dispute

It was a cornerstone of the pitch for legalizing marijuana in Massachusetts: Mandated laboratory testing would ensure that cannabis products sold in regulated stores are free of pesticides, mold, and other contaminants.

Behind the scenes, however, a bitter scientific and business feud has split into two camps the state’s four marijuana testing labs, which currently serve medical dispensaries and will soon join the lucrative recreational market.

Each camp says that the other’s methods can’t be trusted. And both complain that cannabis companies, which under the state’s medical marijuana regulations are required to contract with private labs for testing, routinely “shop” for favorable results by sending samples to different labs.

The state Department of Public Health, which oversees medical marijuana, has declined to referee the dispute or update its testing regime, despite warnings from the labs that a lack of standards and holes in protocols are undermining confidence in the system. And now, the state Cannabis Control Commission is poised to adopt, nearly wholesale, the same rules for testing recreational cannabis, too.

“It’s hard to walk into a dispensary right now and really trust that the products are safe,” said Kamani Jefferson, president of the Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council, which represents marijuana consumers. “They can point to the label and say it’s been tested, but until the state steps in and sets some standards, they can’t really say it with a straight face.”

Setting rules on the quality of marijuana is inherently challenging. While the plant has been the subject of some medical research, decades of prohibition mean there are no established standards for how much and what kinds of contamination might be considered dangerous. Some states have looked to standards for produce, but those are of limited value, since marijuana is more frequently smoked or vaporized than eaten.

In Massachusetts, the Department of Public Health set relatively tight limits for medical marijuana on microbial contamination from mold, yeast, and bacteria, amid concerns that patients with compromised immune systems could be susceptible to infection from tainted cannabis products.

The debate between the labs in the state stems from differences in how they test marijuana for microbes.

Two of the labs — Proverde Laboratories in Milford and MCR Labs in Framingham — use a traditional “plating” technique, in which samples of cannabis are placed in a petri dish containing a gel-like medium that encourages the growth of microbes. After an incubation period, technicians count how many visible spots, or “colonies,” of mold or other contaminants have grown in the gel, and use a standard formula to calculate whether that means the marijuana is unacceptably contaminated according to health department limits.

Two newer labs — CDX Analytics in Salem and EVIO Labs in Southbridge — employ a faster, DNA-based technique called qPCR. Using expensive mass spectrometers and chromatography machines, the companies say, they can precisely measure microbial contamination by detecting how many times microbes’ genetic codes divide.

Proponents say the DNA technique detects exactly what’s in the marijuana at the moment of testing, while the various gel media used in plating could stifle growth of certain microbes and boost others, distorting the relative presence of different contaminants in the sample being tested.

“With a DNA-based method, you get a real-time survey of what’s in the cannabis — it’s representative of what’s actually being sold on the shelves,” said Brianna Cassidy, CDX’s chief scientist. “With the culture-based method, you’re only counting whatever happens to grow in that environment you’ve created on the plate.”

Worse, Cassidy added, the false positives produced by plating are encouraging marijuana growers to use fungicides and other chemicals to remedy nonexistent contamination.

But Chris Hudalla, Proverde’s chief scientist, said plating is a proven technique long used to test food for safety. He argued that the DNA labs could miss contamination by some microbes by testing only for certain species and also complained that the formula used by those labs to translate their results into the state’s standard unit of measurement — colony forming units, or CFUs — is highly flawed guesswork.

“Plating has been tested and accepted by every food manufacturer and scientific organization,” Hudalla said. “The method they’re using is accepted by nobody.”

Hudalla noted that marijuana regulators in Nevada have banned labs there from using qPCR, after concluding the method failed to consistently detect samples with known contamination.

Proverde says it flags more than 30 percent of samples from medical marijuana companies for microbial contamination in excess of state limits. CDX says it fails roughly 15 percent.

Despite that discrepancy, the health department has allowed the two techniques to continue side by side.

“While different testing methods may produce variation in test results, this issue is not unique to medical marijuana and aligns with safety testing in other food and drug industries across the country,” a health department spokeswoman said in a statement.

Hudalla, however, complained that marijuana growers — who are allowed to contract with more than one lab — are exploiting the variation in results, costing his plating lab business.

“The industry knows they have a higher passing rate with qPCR, and they don’t care whether it’s right or wrong,” he said. “They continue to release contaminated products to consumers, and we’ve lost significant revenues to them because DPH and the CCC permit them to use this technology.”

Added Proverde owner Dorian Des Lauriers: “One dispensary owner told us that if we didn’t give him a clean certification, he’d never test with us again, and he implied he’d ruin our reputation. . . .  We’ve been blackballed.”

CDX, for its part, says some of its competitors are fudging marijuana potency tests by first drying out samples in an oven. Removing moisture would reduce the weight of the cannabis being tested, making it seem like the concentration of THC — the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana — was higher.

“If we did potency tests like that, I’d have 24 [dispensaries] as customers instead of six,” said Eamon Travers, CDX’s vice president of business development.

Both groups of labs, however, agree on two things: The state needs to revamp its system for collecting marijuana samples for testing and also step up its tests for pesticides.

Under its current rules, the health department allows marijuana companies to pick their own samples. Other states, including Maryland and California, require independent third parties to conduct sampling, so cultivators cannot submit buds only from selected “clean” plants.

But Massachusetts health officials, citing varying production schedules, crop sizes, product types, and lab methods, maintain it makes sense to let licensed marijuana growers pick their own samples and batch sizes within health department guidelines.

A health department spokeswoman said every medical dispensary must develop “an individualized sampling plan that adheres to national and international standards.” She also said growers are subject to routine inspections, including of their sampling protocols.

The labs also agree that the current system for testing pesticides is inadequate, as it only requires tests for nine common chemicals.

“There are hundreds of commercially available pesticides,” Proverde and MCR complained in a co-signed letter to marijuana regulators earlier this year. “The current protocol is a short list of pesticides to avoid, leaving everything else as fair game.”

While health department regulations encourage labs to test for as many pesticides as possible, dispensaries have little incentive to pay for tests beyond those required, the labs wrote.

Hudalla said the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, which regulates pesticide use, recently asked Proverde for results showing pesticides in medical marijuana.

A spokeswoman for the department said the agency does not comment on pesticides investigations.

The cannabis commission, which will absorb the medical marijuana program later this year, declined to comment.

The agency has created a category of license for “standards” labs that would study the best ways to test cannabis. So far, no companies have applied.