After weeks of worry over whether Martha’s Vineyard may be cut off from Massachusetts’ supply of legal cannabis, state officials on Thursday gave their approval for pot companies to ship products between the mainland and the islands off Cape Cod.
The move headed off concerns stemming from the closure of the Vineyard’s only operating pot farm and the looming closure of the island’s two dispensaries.
Because marijuana is federally illegal, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission previously said all pot sold on the Vineyard and Nantucket must be grown there too, lest businesses run afoul of laws barring the trafficking of illicit drugs through federal waters.
On Thursday, the commission approved an administrative order reversing that stance.
With the Vineyard’s cannabis supply seemingly at risk, the commission “made the decision that we needed to take immediate action,” Acting Commission Chair Ava Callender Concepcion said Thursday.
Nantucket has two shops that grow and sell marijuana. Neither was at imminent risk for closure.
Of particular concern on the Vineyard were the island’s roughly 230 medical marijuana patients, who depend on prescription pot to help them through medical conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain and cancer.
“We never want to be putting consumers and patients in a place where they don’t have access to medicine, they don’t have access to cannabis,” Concepcion said. “We also don’t want to see (businesses) close their doors.”
Vineyard dispensary Fine Fettle said earlier this year that it was closing its marijuana grow facility, the only one on the island, and planned to shut down its retail store in the town of West Tisbury by September.
That prompted the closure of the Vineyard’s other dispensary, Island Time, which bought products from Fine Fettle.
Island Time owner Geoff Rose said Thursday that he hoped to reopen the store “very soon.”
“Today is a great day in providing equity for operators on the islands,” Rose said by email. “I appreciate the efforts of the CCC Commissioners and staff to address this important issue, one that has been long overdue for attention.”
The rule change comes as the Vineyard is beginning to welcome tens of thousands of tourists for the summer. Rose said that missing out on the coming months of business would have decimated his chances of being able to reopen.
While technically possible to ship marijuana to the islands without leaving state waters, businesses had interpreted the state regulations as banning the transportation of pot to the islands.
Hawaii, California and other states have previously faced similar issues and carved out guidance for businesses to still ship cannabis across the ocean or through federal airspace.
Massachusetts cannabis commissioners were persuaded to adjust state rules during a hearing last week on the Vineyard when islanders described their fears of sourcing marijuana outside of legal pot shops.
“We don’t want anyone to have to turn to the illicit market, where you don’t know what you’re getting,” Cannabis Commissioner Kimberly Roy said Thursday.
The four commissioners approved the administrative order in a unanimous vote. It goes into effect Friday.
Desperate to reopen, Rose sued the commission last month. He was joined by the Nantucket dispensary Green Lady, whose co-owner said she hoped to legally ship cannabis from the island to the company’s other store in Newton.
In court filings, they had accused the commission of maintaining an “arbitrary, unreasonable and inconsistent” policy that isolates island dispensaries “without any rational basis.”
“The water is federal water, but we all drive the cannabis to do deliveries on the federal road system,” Nicole Campbell, the co-owner of Green Lady, said. “We’re already using the federal infrastructure to move a product that’s federally illegal.”
H/T: www.masslive.com
