Massachusetts marijuana mishegas

By adamg on Fri, 10/06/2023 - 1:37pm

Chris Faraone at Talking Joints Memo covers the week in pot, and what a week it was: The suspended chair of the state cannabis commission suspended, for now, her suit against the state treasurer, Massachusetts marijuana marketers are beginning to hit economic headwinds and it looks like one grower that fled the state after one of its workers died could be in for a fine.

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Business

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Marijuana

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Comments

How do you establish a cannabis commission, anyway?

By Will LaTulippe on Fri, 10/06/2023 - 1:43pm.

I mean, you'd want people with knowledge of the stuff, right? Of course, that stuff was a crime right up until the commission was established, so you'd be incriminating yourself by stating your credentials.

We don't send our best and brightest to elected office, folks.

Since you asked ...

By adamg on Fri, 10/06/2023 - 1:56pm.

I have no idea how it actually worked in MA, but it's not as if marijuana wasn't already legal in other states, at least some of which might have had people from Massachusetts who are knowledgeable enough about the industry to work at regulating it back home.

Plus, when you strip away all the novel and interesting stuff about marijuana, it's pretty similar to any other regulated industry - like, say, alcohol, which the state's been regulating since Prohibition. So it's not as if there's nobody in the state with experience in overseeing a heavily regulated commodity.

I don't care about experience

By yrennalf on Fri, 10/06/2023 - 3:54pm.

I don't care about experience with whatever the thing you're regulating. As you said, under the surface it's like any other controlled industry.

Want I want on a commission, any commission, is anyone with small business experience to look at some of the more asinine restriction and realize how much they are hamstringing anyone who even thinks they want to open a business.

Quite a choice of venue

By Polybius on Fri, 10/06/2023 - 5:00pm.

Personally, I wouldn't complain about regulation directly under an article that mentions the death of a worker caused by an employer's negligence, but you do you.

CCC’s problem is mis-, not over- regulation

By Jeff F on Sat, 10/07/2023 - 4:18am.

Yes, there’s multiple examples of them making a hash of regulations, eg the [awkward and anti-small business] additions proposed to the Host Community Agreement rules.

But they’re also boning it by failing to create regulations about a very important consumer-facing aspect of the industry - testing and certification. Companies that do this work (at least the more professional and ethical ones) are *begging* the CCC to come up with more transparent and rational rules for how samples are collected, tested, and reported. But its been mostly crickets from the commission.

They don’t need to be doing less or more, they need to be doing better.

No usage needed

By BostonDog on Fri, 10/06/2023 - 1:59pm.

This is nuts and bolts government bureaucracy and that's not a bad thing. So you want someone who can operate a department that is quick to respond, keeps good records, and can rationally justify their decisions. Being a user personally isn't that important. If anything, not being a user means there's less claims of favoritism.

People endlessly demonize government workers and then wonder why they can't get good people in the jobs.

two good answers

By Vicki on Sat, 10/07/2023 - 3:29pm.

1) Make having a past conviction for cannabis possession or sale a qualification. Saying "I was convicted of this and served my sentence" isn't self-incriminating.

That's if you think direct knowledge of the stuff is relevant.

2) The Washington state model, where what had been the alcoholic beverages commission is now the alcohol and cannabis commission.

And that's if you're looking for people who understand bureaucracy and are willing to spend time in meetings.

Old hacks never die, they just get a court settlement.

To think we could have had Governor Robert Reich but for idiot Dem primary voters.

I remember, when she ran,

By jmeltzer on Sun, 10/08/2023 - 7:38am.

thinking that was the worst campaign I had ever seen.

And then we got Coakley, to show how really awful a campaign could be.