House committee voting on potential CCC restructuring, changes to cannabis licence ownership limits
Photo | Courtesy of Regenerative
Outdoor cannabis farms like Regenerative in Uxbridge don't require energy-intensive lighting or HVAC systems.
House members of a joint legislative committee are voting on a bill Wednesday to restructure the embattled Cannabis Control Commission, downsizing it to a three-member panel and addressing industry pressure points like license caps and the rise of intoxicating hemp products.
A Cannabis Policy Committee poll email was sent to House committee members Wednesday morning, seeking a favorable recommendation on the 46-page bill. The poll is slated to close at 1 p.m. and the bill would be reported to the House.
Frustration with the slow pace of CCC regulatory changes, headline-grabbing internal conflicts and a plea from the inspector general for the Legislature to intervene at the "rudderless agency" and revisit its "unclear and self-contradictory" 2017 enabling statute combined last summer to compel the committee to weigh a response.
The CCC is a five-commissioner body, with appointments made singularly and jointly by the governor, attorney general and treasurer. Under the bill, the CCC would include three people appointed by the governor, with the governor also selecting one to serve as chair. The chairperson, rather than the entire body of commissioners, would hire the agency's executive director.
The bill adjusts the existing cap on retail licenses any one operator can hold. The current limit is three, but some business owners have said the cap prevents them from selling their businesses. Under the bill advancing towards the House, the cap on retail licenses would be raised to six, and the existing three-license caps would remain in place for cultivation and manufacturing.
Opponents, including Equitable Opportunities Now and the Massachusetts Cannabis Equity Council, have warned that multistate operators are able to spend heavily to increase their market share and that allowing them to grow even more will hurt small and equity-owned businesses.
The bill also appears to eliminate the requirement that medical marijuana businesses be "vertically integrated," meaning they must grow and process all the marijuana they sell. Patients and advocates have been calling for that change for years, saying the medical-only options have become scarce across Massachusetts since cannabis was legalized for non-medical use.
It includes language that would let the CCC "establish and provide for issuance of additional types or classes of licenses to operate medical use of marijuana-related businesses" and would change the terminology in state law from "medical marijuana treatment center" to "medical marijuana establishment." It also would carve out a new definition for "fully integrated medical marijuana treatment center," essentially existing businesses that may continue to operate as vertically integrated.
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