Cannabis regulators meet with senators as potential restructuring looms
Photo | Edd Cote
The Cannabis Control Commission is headquarter at Worcester's Union Station.
Leaders at the Cannabis Control Commission have been busy meeting with senators, including Senate President Karen Spilka, as a House-approved bill overhauling the CCC awaits Senate action.
Acting CCC Chair Bruce Stebbins, Executive Director Travis Ahern and members of the agency's government affairs and policy staff met with three senators in recent weeks "to discuss ongoing policy work at the Commission." They met with Spilka, Cannabis Policy Committee Vice Chair Dylan Fernandes and Sen. Jo Comerford, according to a memo included in materials for Thursday's CCC meeting.
When he gave an update on his own activities to start the meeting, Stebbins mentioned the meeting with Fernandes and the senator's perch on the Cannabis Policy Committee as well as his meeting with Comerford and her work around regulating intoxicating hemp products. But he did not mention having met with Spilka, who has the ability to influence whether or when a CCC restructuring bill gets sent to Gov. Maura Healey as well as the contours of any new agency structure.
"I will talk to senators and the chair of the Cannabis Committee, and we'll see. We'll take a look at whatever the House sends over, of course," Spilka said last month when asked about her branch taking up the bill that passed the House unanimously.
That bill (H 4206) would downsize the CCC from five full-time members to one full-time chairperson and two part-time commissioners (there are only three active commissioners at the moment) while also making significant changes to the regulatory frameworks for hemp and legal cannabis. It has been pending before the Senate Ways and Means Committee since June 9.
Commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion noted at the outset of the meeting that Thursday is July 10, or 7/10, which she said is a cannabis industry "holiday" known as Oil Day or Dab Day (because 7/10 upside down looks like the word "OIL").
"The focus of this holiday, unlike 4/20 -- 4/20 is about all cannabis products, Dab Day is focused on cannabis concentrates and dabbing," she said, referring to the practice of heating marijuana concentrate on a hot surface and then inhaling the vaporized oil. "Dabbing is also something that I'm sure those on the social consumption working group know is heavily intertwined with social consumption practices in jurisdictions across the country. It's something that is a really heavy draw for those entities. It's something that consumers seem to enjoy, and it's something that I believe will also be a draw here in the commonwealth as well."
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