Cannabis supply for hundreds of Medical patients may run dry by fall
The Massachusetts cannabis industry has drifted into uncharted waters.
With a Martha’s Vineyard dispensary and the island’s only licensed cannabis growing facility expected to close, state regulators are left with a tricky question: how to transport marijuana between the mainland and the island through federal waters and air space.
While Massachusetts voters legalized cannabis more than seven years ago, the federal government has taken no similar action.
Without a company growing marijuana on Martha’s Vineyard, the island’s supply of legal cannabis products will eventually dry up, cutting off both recreational smokers and the island’s 230 medical marijuana patients.
“There’s a lot of people who depend on (the cannabis businesses) on the islands, both for medical consumption and for adult use as well,” Cannabis Control Commission Acting Chair Ava Callender Concepcion said Thursday.
The only company licensed to grow marijuana on Martha’s Vineyard, Fine Fettle, has shut down its farm, company president Benjamin Zachs told the Vineyard Gazette and the Martha’s Vineyard Times last week.
He estimated the company’s medical and recreational dispensary in the town of West Tisbury had enough stock to stay open until the fall.
Vineyard medical marijuana patients may be cut off
The question of how marijuana would be shipped to the island raised conflicts between the state’s cannabis industry and federal law. And the possibility that medical marijuana patients, in particular, could be cut off from the supply chain set off an “all hands on deck conversation” for state regulators, Concepcion said during a commission meeting Thursday.
“It wasn’t something we anticipated in terms of the access to product,” she told reporters after the meeting. “The implications would be significant if we’re not able to give those patients let alone all the consumers who are currently on the island, or who may frequent the island during the summer months,” access to cannabis.
Commission lawyers have contacted a variety of state and federal agencies for guidance, including the Massachusetts State Police, Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Steamship Authority, which runs ferry service to the islands.
Zachs blamed regulatory challenges and financial troubles for the pending closure.
State law requires cannabis growers to test their products. Most companies do so at independent laboratories. But the absence of such a facility on the island meant Fine Fettle had to prop up its own testing system to avoid shipping products to mainland labs over federal waters.
“For us, while Martha’s Vineyard is in Massachusetts, it’s like a whole other state with a whole other regulatory structure,” Zachs told the Gazette.
Connecticut-based Fine Fettle also has a dispensary in Rowley and will open another this month in West Springfield.
The closure of its Martha’s Vineyard pot shop will leave one other cannabis retailer on the island — Island Time, in the town of Vineyard Haven.
Nantucket has two dispensaries.
Other states work around federal cannabis laws
The questions the commission faces are not unheard of.
Multiple other states — commission staff mentioned California, Maine, New York and Alaska — have provisions addressing the transport of marijuana to islands through federal waters.
Commissioners directed their staff to prioritize both licensing new cannabis businesses on the Vineyard and Nantucket and any changes of ownership should Fine Fettle seek to sell its island operations.
Commissioners also said they aimed to consult with local leaders on the Vineyard and host a hearing there in the coming weeks.
“We’re not inventing the wheel,” Commissioner Kimberly Roy said. “Other jurisdictions have done it. But if we do nothing, you’re going to have 234 patients with no access to medical cannabis on the island.”
