Martha’s Winery has a pot downside: There isn’t sufficient, as Massachusetts officers meet involved residents

By the point this summer time ends, vacationers, day trippers, and residents dwelling on the island of Martha’s Winery might lose entry to authorized marijuana.

The Bay State’s Hashish Management Fee, on Thursday, joined the involved residents of the island throughout a gathering held in Oak Bluffs — the place they mentioned the impending closure of the Winery’s solely marijuana cultivation facility and the potential for the return of questionable black-market merchandise.

Marijuana manufacturing, possession, and consumption is authorized for adults dwelling on the island of Martha’s Winery, simply because it’s authorized for anybody over the age of 21 standing anyplace else in Massachusetts.

Nevertheless, the federal authorities nonetheless considers marijuana a Schedule I managed substance, which so far as they’re involved makes it as dangerous as heroin or LSD. That distinction means shifting any quantity of pot from the mainland to the island and throughout U.S. managed waters is a criminal offense.

That additionally means the entire hashish bought and consumed on the Winery should be grown and examined in keeping with state requirements with out crossing Buzzards Bay or Winery Sound. Actual property costs being what they’re on Martha’s Winery, solely a single rising facility — Advantageous Fettle — has opened on the island since marijuana turned authorized in Massachusetts.

In Could, the corporate introduced that they had stopped producing marijuana in Martha’s Winery and would shut their doorways in September, eradicating the one authorized supply of hashish from the island market. That can depart the Winery’s greater than 200 medical marijuana sufferers and the hundreds who merely take pleasure in enjoyable with hashish in a little bit of a bind.

Commissioners, in keeping with their opening statements, appear to appreciate there may be already a rising provide downside on the Winery.

“We take the supply chain issue facing the island very seriously,” Commissioner Kimberly Roy stated, whereas “acknowledging that there are challenges presented due to federal prohibition and the current regulatory scheme.”

The fee spent greater than an hour listening to from dozens of island residents, lots of whom defined the constructive impact medical marijuana has had on their lives, the lives of members of the family and neighbors, or high quality of life for his or her sufferers.

Dr. Terry Kriedman instructed the fee that, so far as she is aware of, she’s the one licensed hashish certification physician on the island. She stated that discovering a option to get marijuana to the island’s residents is a matter of “health equity.”