Home lawmakers handed laws Wednesday that overhauls oversight on the beleaguered Hashish Management Fee, handing the governor of Massachusetts the ability to nominate all commissioners whereas slicing down the quantity from 5 to 3.
The coverage proposal cleared the chamber on a 153-0 vote and got here after a number of years of controversy on the fee, together with the ousting of and subsequent authorized battle to reinstate former Chair Shannon O’Brien, a litany of inside conflicts, and a damning report from the state’s Workplace of the Inspector Normal.
Rep. Daniel Donahue, a Worcester Democrat who co-chairs the Hashish Police Committee, stated the Hashish Management Fee is making “headlines due to well-publicized personnel and governance issues.”
“Against this backdrop, the cannabis industry continues to mature, facing a myriad of mounting challenges, from raising new capital, to increasing costs, to overregulation, plaguing its ability to grow and thrive,” Donahue stated. “Following resignations and removals at the CCC, a report from an inspector general, the speaker charged the Cannabis Committee to look at how best to address the structural challenges inherent in the enabling legislation of the CCC.”
In a serious change to the appointing authority for commissioners, Home lawmakers authorised language that palms the governor the levers to pick out all three commissioners as a substitute of joint appointments from the treasurer, governor, and lawyer common.
Donahue stated giving the governor full authority over appointments to the fee will “create more accountability.”
“We figured by bringing it together … under one appointing authority, reducing the number to three, makes it a more nimble body, a more nimble force,” he informed reporters earlier than the invoice was handed.
Treasurer Deb Goldberg stated the Legislature “seems to be looking” at a regulatory construction for the fee “that will draw on approaches that have worked well in other states.”
“This change will create the potential for a more streamlined process that better serves the people of Massachusetts. We are hopeful that any changes will allow the Commission to focus more fully on its core mission,” Goldberg stated in a press release.
The invoice, crafted by Home Democrats, removes the full-time standing from almost all of the commissioners. Solely the chair of the Hashish Management Fee would serve full-time, whereas the remaining two commissioners would work part-time.
The laws defines the function of the chair of the Hashish Management Fee as the ultimate authority over personnel and administrative issues, and makes the manager director immediately report back to the chair as a substitute of the complete fee.
The laws additionally boosts the acquisition and possession restrict from one to 2 ounces and bars the sale of consumable merchandise containing cannabinoids outdoors of a licensing construction created by the Division of Public Health.
Rep. Michael Soter, a Bellingham Republican, stated boosting the non-public possession restrict aligns “our laws with practical realities … reducing unnecessary penalties.” The language round cannabinoids will “close the Delta-9 loophole,” he stated, referring to a type of THC present in hashish crops.
“(The loophole) has allowed intoxicating hemp to proliferate the market without proper regulations,” he stated.
The Home raised the variety of hashish licenses anybody particular person or entity can maintain from three to 6. Donahue stated lawmakers heard from “many in the industry about the difficulty the cap presents for small and social equity businesses attempting to scale up.”
Companies licensed by the Hashish Management Fee to domesticate, manufacture, and promote hashish to medical marijuana sufferers won’t be required to vertically combine beneath the laws.
Donahue stated the “dated” vertical integration of the medical marijuana license is a “cumbersome model” that was inherited from the Division of Public Health’s preliminary oversight of medical hashish legalization in 2012.
“Currently, to sell medical, you must grow, manufacture, and retail all in the same license. The costs of setting up a fully vertically integrated model are extremely high and cost-prohibitive for most of the market. And recently, we have seen medical licenses cease to operate. We propose removing this strict vertical model,” Donahue stated.
