A law approved earlier this year as a follow-up to Connecticut’s landmark 2021 legalization of adult-use cannabis included a requirement that a task force appointed by Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders meet a January 2024 deadline to study and recommend procedures for those who grow marijuana in their homes to possibly sell their crops in the retail marketplace.
But they have dropped the ball on the 13-member panel, which was supposed to have been named by late-July, and now seems unlikely to even meet for the first time by January — weeks before the General Assembly convenes again in February.
Called the Task Force on Certain Sales of Home-Grown Cannabis, the law’s legislative goal was to study the potential health, safety, and financial impacts of allowing people who cultivate cannabis at home to sell it at events, possibly even farmers markets.
Advocates say it’s a missed opportunity for hobbyist home growers, including members of the underground legacy community, to utilize their years of experience growing cannabis for the regulated market, which is less than a year old.
House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, a major proponent of the passage of the 2021 bill, said that with so many task forces and pieces of legislation mandating studies of various kinds, the cannabis panel seems to have fallen into an administrative blind spot.
“It’s fair to be frustrated,” Rojas said in an interview. “There are folks in the cannabis community who would like to see it treated the way craft beer is. They need to operate in a highly regulated system. My hope is we can get there. At this point we’re not remotely close to a system where home growers can even have their crops tested.”
State Sen. James Maroney, D-Milford, co-chairman of the legislative General Law Committee which would administrate the task force, said Friday that two appointments have been made to the panel: ex officio members from the state Department of Consumer Protection and the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Lamont’s office announced on Friday that Jason White, director of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, is one of his picks for the task force.
He said that section of the overall bill was written to acknowledge hobbyists, while another part of the law bans a gray area in the 2021 law that growers used to hold so-called gifting parties, such as the High Bazaar, that attracted hundreds of people each week in Hamden before it was shut down. Another section targeted synthetic THC products — known as Delta 8 — that had been available at gas stations, smoke shops and variety stores.
“The task force was a way for us to go back and look, after people had testified in favor of home grown,” Maroney said. “I think it’s too early to make any major changes to the market. We still have a lot of potential growth. It’s a slow roll out. Given the holidays and the constraints between now and January, I’m not sure about the task force.”
Under the law, the House speaker, Senate president pro tempore, and governor each have two members to appoint, while the House and Senate majority and minority leaders each have one appointment.
Cannabis advocates are disappointed with the delay.
“This year’s cannabis legalization follow-up law mandated the creation of a task force to study an innovative idea — allowing home cultivated cannabis to be sold to consumers,” said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project. “This could bring legacy growers into the legal, regulated market; provide income for home businesses, without requiring vast start up costs; and increase customer choice. It’s a shame leaders failed to follow the law and appoint task force members, as even as the deadline for the report nears and next year’s session approaches.”
“There is a wonderful culture out there, of New England home grow,” said Joseph Raymond Accettulo, president of the New England Craft Cannabis Alliance who was a leading advocate in the push for the 2021 full legalization law. “If they take a good look at it and do it properly, something could really change what is a broken market because it is monopolized by the state four growers. The regulated market is almost at a standstill.”
Lou Rinaldi of Guilford, a medical cannabis patient and advocate, said that killing the task force before it even meets is another example of the state’s desire to maximize tax revenue. It allows four growers to reap profits without competition while so-called equity licenses, created to help communities that were targets in the failed federal war on drugs, are going to many out-of-state investors.
“They pass the law and execute the parts they care about, which is enforcement and revenue,” Rinaldi said in a Friday interview. “Small craft producers can’t win licenses. There has to be some kind of equitable accountability in the supply zone. These folks are tired of operating in the shadows. They could have clients and pay taxes.”
State law allows medical marijuana patients 18 years and older and adults 21 and older to grow up to three mature and three immature plants in their homes, with a cap of a dozen total plants per household. Plants must be grown indoors and must not be visible from the street.
“It’s like the lawmakers are saying ‘Be happy with home grow and you’re not going to get anything else,'” Rinaldi said. “There’s an endless stream of excuses why we can’t benefit people, instead of corporations. If you are going to pass the law, you have to act on them.”
State Rep. David Rutigliano of Trumbull, a top Republican on the General Law Committee who opposed the 2021 legalization, said Friday that to him, a central part of this year’s bill was to regulate and remove Delta 8 from shelves of gas stations and variety stores where kids have ready access, while addressing the public aspects of the gifting parties such as the High Bazaar.
“With no appointments to the task force, it means next year we’re starting over,” Rutigliano said. “We were going to talk about it. It didn’t accomplish its goal.”
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