FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 12, 2023
EON Contacts: Co-Founder Shanel Lindsay (shanel@masseon.com) & Policy Co-Chair Kevin Gilnack (kevin@masseon.com)
BECMA Contacts: President & CEO Nicole Obi (nobi@becma.org) & Senior Policy & Advocacy Manager Tristan Thomas (tthomas@becma.org), Chief of Policy Alyssa Benalfew-Ramos (abenalfew-ramos@becma.org)
[NOTE: Please see the full letter enclosed below for additional details.]
Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, Equitable Opportunities Now urge Cannabis Control Commission to Repeal Burdensome Regulations Targeting Equity Businesses
WORCESTER – Two nonprofits focused on increasing access to equitable economic opportunity for Black and Brown communities are teaming up to urge cannabis regulators to loosen regulations they say are hindering cannabis delivery operators in Massachusetts in advance of the Cannabis Control Commission’s Dec. 14 public meeting where the issue is expected to be addressed.
For a minimum of three years, delivery licenses are exclusively available to businesses controlled by, and with majority ownership comprised of, Certified Economic Empowerment Priority Applicants or Social Equity Program Participants. Under the Commission’s current regulations, the exclusivity period begins in February 2023 when the first Marijuana Delivery Operator received a notice to commence operations.
Leaders from the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA) and Equitable Opportunities Now (EON) are urging the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) to address a half dozen rules they say are holding the industry back and to extend that exclusivity period so that entrepreneurs from disparately harmed communities by the war on drugs.
According to their letter, the groups are urging the CCC to implement the following regulatory changes as soon as possible “to unlock the potential of these important license types:
- Remove the two-agent rule to enable licensees to make the best decision for their business and their workers without a one-size-fits-all mandate
- Align license cap limit with other license types by increasing the cap from two to three
- Allow repackaging to unlock additional economic and innovative opportunities while maintaining public health and safety
- Support normalization of the industry, innovation, and potential partnerships by eliminating the unnecessarily burdensome prohibition on delivery to hotels
- Remove the excessively restrictive and burdensome prohibition on delivery to towns that prohibit adult-use retail dispensaries to enable consumer access and economic opportunity
- Most importantly: Help undo the harm that the CCC’s overly restrictive regulations have imposed on applicants and licensees whose participation in the industry the agency sought to promote by resetting the clock on the exclusivity period, extending it to seven years to allow adequate time to address future issues, and aligning it with the forthcoming social consumption exclusivity period.”
Cannabis Control Commissioners have discussed possible changes to cannabis delivery regulations at several previous public meetings and are anticipated to resume those discussions at their next public meeting on Dec. 14.
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Equitable Opportunities Now (EON)’s mission is to ensure equitable ownership and employment opportunities for Black and Brown communities who have been targeted by the War on Drugs. We are seeking general support funding for our constituent-led statewide legislative and regulatory advocacy campaigns to create equitable economic opportunities in MA’s cannabis industry. Learn more at www.masseon.com
The Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA)’s mission is to drive economic equity and prosperity for Massachusetts to achieve inclusive growth through advocacy, programming, and strategic partnerships that enable Black-owned businesses and Black communities to thrive. Learn more at www.becma.org
BECMA & EON Public Comment Letter to CCC Regarding Delivery Regulation Review
———- Forwarded message ———
From: Kevin Gilnack
Date: Mon, Dec 11, 2023 at 4:25 PM
Subject: BECMA & EON: Please pass critical reforms to support delivery operators
To: Ava Concepcion, Bruce Stebbins, Kimberly Roy, Nurys Z Camargo
Cc: Cannabis Control Commission, Matt Giancola, Shanel Lindsay, Nicole Obi, Tristan Thomas, Armani White, Alyssa Benalfew-Ramos
Dear Acting Chair Concepcion and Commissioners Camargo, Roy, & Stebbins,
Thank you, and your staff, for your ongoing work and deliberations regarding the Commonwealth’s Delivery Operator and Marijuana Courier license types. We appreciate the commitment that you and your predecessors have shown in seeking to cultivate meaningful business, job, and wealth-creation opportunities for those harmed by the war on drugs while preserving public health and safety.
Unfortunately, the initial framework for Marijuana Delivery Operators and Marijuana Couriers has failed to create meaningful economic opportunities for the communities intended to benefit from it due to overly burdensome regulations that emphasize an overly cautious and costly approach that exceeds the standards set by any other state in the country.
On behalf of Equitable Opportunities Now, the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, and our members and supporters across the Commonwealth, we urge the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) to make the following regulatory changes at the earliest possible opportunity to unlock the potential of these important license types:
- Remove the two-agent rule to enable licensees to make the best decision for their business and their workers without a one-size-fits-all mandate
- Align license cap limit with other license types by increasing the cap from two to three
- Allow repackaging to unlock additional economic and innovative opportunities while maintaining public health and safety
- Support normalization of the industry, innovation, and potential partnerships by eliminating the unnecessarily burdensome prohibition on delivery to hotels
- Remove the excessively restrictive and burdensome prohibition on delivery to towns that prohibit adult-use retail dispensaries to enable consumer access and economic opportunity
- Most importantly: Help undo the harm that the CCC’s overly restrictive regulations have imposed on applicants and licensees whose participation in the industry the agency sought to promote by resetting the clock on the exclusivity period, extending it to seven years to allow adequate time to address future issues, and aligning it with the forthcoming social consumption exclusivity period.
We appreciate your willingness to hear from the stakeholders most impacted by your policy decisions and your thoughtful consideration of how to best enable delivery operators to thrive. We write in solidarity with the delivery operators and applicants and support policy recommendations that remove unnecessary regulatory burdens that will enable delivery operators to thrive while protecting health and safety.
This review of the Commission’s delivery license regulations comes at a pivotal time with the Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund coming online and amidst the Commission’s ongoing work to establish new social consumption regulations. We urge you in the strongest terms to seize upon the opportunities presented by both changes to the delivery regulations and the establishment of social consumption regulations to normalize this industry with reasonable regulations in line with other states and comparable industries while maximizing opportunities to promote the full participation of disparately impacted communities in this industry.
Eliminate the two-agent requirement
With each iteration of cannabis statutes and regulations, the Commonwealth comes closer and closer to treating cannabis like alcohol, as originally promoted in the voter-approved Question 4 ballot question. When the Cannabis Control Commission initially created and then expanded upon its delivery regulation, it did so with the utmost caution, knowing that future Commissioners would have the benefit of additional data and experience from within Massachusetts and across the country.
Based on the information that is publicly available, it appears that the vast majority of Marijuana Delivery Operator and courier deliveries have occurred without incident and that the overwhelming feedback Commission staff has heard and relayed from other states indicates that their delivery programs have operated safely without a one-agent rule.
We defer to the people who have been working to establish this new sector of the market despite the numerous overly burdensome regulations detailed above. We urge you to listen to the people who are responsible for maintaining both the safety and paychecks of their workers, the reputation of their brands, and ultimately their licenses and businesses to make the best choice for their operations. Trust the workers who choose to work for these operators, or not, or organize, or file complaints, or raise concerns if they are ever put at risk by any licensee for any reason. Trust your staff and yourselves to evaluate each licensing application to ensure all of its policies and procedures meet reasonable safety expectations in line with comparable operations in other industries.
We recognize that any single incident that threatens a worker’s safety is too many, but also that we cannot regulate our way around every potential threat. Indeed excessive regulations may further feed into the perception that these delivery operators are delivering goods of value far in excess of what they are actually carrying.
Further, once this excessively prescriptive and burdensome regulation is lifted, the Commission may wish to consider bringing stakeholders together to discuss whether the current limit of $10,000 of product per vehicle is excessive and whether it could be lowered to further reduce the likelihood of an incident occurring while avoiding any unintended consequences that unnecessarily stifle the industry.
The typical cannabis consumer buys tens or hundreds of dollars of product at a time – and there are caps on maximum purchases that are far less than many Amazon and UPS deliveries. It is time to start treating cannabis deliveries like alcohol or even Amazon deliveries rather than armored vehicle deliveries of cash, jewels, or plutonium.
You have likely already seen WCVB’s ride-along with delivery operator Rolling Releaf, and have likely seen first hand and heard many first-hand accounts, about the reality of how mundane these deliveries actually are. Whether you have or haven’t, we urge you to watch in advance of your discussion and consider whether the two-agent regulation meets a safety need rooted in reality: https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-rolling-releaf-cannabis-delivery-rule-changes/45769852
Commissioners should take the long overdue step of removing the two-agent rule as soon as possible to align the rules of those in at least eight other states, help normalize this industry, and unlock economic opportunity for those most impacted by the war on drugs.
Align delivery license cap with that of other license types
When the two-license cap was established on delivery operators, there were significant concerns that we might see the Amazonification or Drizzlyfication of cannabis delivery. The rule was born out of unfounded concerns regarding market consolidation rooted in caution and lack of experience.
In establishing the two-license cap, we established yet another rule unique only to the operators that the Commonwealth’s cannabis laws seek to promote in this industry – a rule that has limited business expansion, job creation, and innovation, creating another significant barrier to the success of this sector of the market.
We urge Commissioners to give cannabis social equity business delivery licensees the opportunity to own the same number of licenses as the MSOs and well-financed operators saturating the retail, cultivation, and manufacturing market by increasing the delivery license cap from two to three.
Allow delivery operators to repackage products
While Marijuana Retailers and Marijuana Treatment Centers are allowed by regulation to repackage marijuana products, delivery operators are not – another example of overly restrictive regulations targeted only at cannabis social equity businesses trying to establish this fragile new sector.
By exclusively limiting delivery operators from repackaging, the Commission is cutting off only this market segment from the opportunities for innovation, partnerships, and economic development that one would expect in a healthy industry unencumbered by unnecessarily restrictive regulations.
We recognize the Commission must uphold its obligation to the public, consumers, and current and future licensees by protecting public health and safety through the tracking and monitoring of marijuana and marijuana products. We are confident in the Commission and its staff to develop any additional regulatory or subregulatory guidance, changes in policies and practices, or updates to software and systems necessary to ensure the Commission can track products repackaged by delivery operators as effectively as it does retailers and medical dispensaries
Please remove the unfair and unnecessary repackaging prohibition for delivery operators to enable this sector of the market to pursue the same opportunities for innovation and prosperity as retail and medical marijuana dispensaries.
Eliminate the prohibition against delivery to hotels
As noted throughout this letter, it is time for the Cannabis Control Commission to help the Commonwealth’s emerging cannabis industry transition from the necessary, but hopefully temporary, period of over-caution and begin to normalize it within Massachusetts’ economy with appropriate health and safety safeguards.
With the prospect of forthcoming social consumption regulations – and, eventually, applications and licenses – the Cannabis Control Commission should promote opportunities for innovation, partnerships, and economic development related to cannabis tourism and hospitality by eliminating these unnecessary regulations.
We hope that the Commission will support a regulatory framework that will incubate collaboration and opportunity for delivery operators, social consumption licensees, and ancillary businesses with related interests such as hotels, casinos, bed and breakfasts, inns, as well as other aspects of the hospitality and wider economy.
While we cannot anticipate every scenario, we urge the Commission to consider if they want to stand in the way of opportunities such as:
- A hotel or other lodging establishment that wants to encourage cannabis tourists to stay by allowing deliveries or partnering with preferred delivery operators
- A casino, restaurant, or hotel using a dedicated, well-ventilated patio to offer a cannabis smoking and vaping area
- A hospitality establishment for pursuing their own licensed indoor combustion lounges, licensed facilities or cafes with onsite sales or spaces to consume one’s own products, perhaps ordered from a delivery provider
- A resort, golf course, or casino to partner with delivery licensees to deliver marijuana products and/or marijuana to their guests and offer safe spaces for consumption
We recognize that the Commission will want to consider the feedback and input from the hospitality industry and that there may be some who prefer the simplicity of stifling this entire potential subsector of the market through regulation. We object to that reasoning and urge you to consider the communities you are charged with promoting in this industry and your obligations to set reasonable regulations governing cannabis sales, not hospitality operations.
We see no reason to create a regulation for cannabis delivery operators that would never apply to all food, package, or liquor delivery operators – certainly not one that outweighs the Commission’s obligations to support equitable economic opportunity and avoid unreasonably impractical regulations.
Massachusetts cannabis retail and delivery operators are both equally adept at verifying identification and following safety and security policies and procedures. We would never tell retail operators that they cannot serve tourists who might stay at a hotel and there is no public health or safety justification to continue prohibiting cannabis delivery operators from delivering to hotel guests any differently than other delivery operators.
We urge the Commission to repeal its prohibition against cannabis deliveries to hotels.
Remove the prohibition against delivery to “no towns”
The prohibition against cannabis deliveries to towns that have prohibited retail sales creates unnecessary barriers to access for consumers and unregistered patients who have the least access to regulated marijuana and marijuana products.
It is time to remove this unnecessary restriction as the Commission seeks to regulate cannabis, and particularly delivery, closer to alcohol and deliveries of other consumer goods. The ABCC does not prohibit alcohol or grocery delivery companies from delivering alcohol in dry towns and nothing in the statute requires the CCC to impose this unnecessary burden on a fragile and encumbered industry.
The Commission’s legal counsel has raised important points about the differences between sales and the delivery of personal property relative to where, when, and how a transaction occurs. Given that delivery operators are bringing consumers property that they already purchased from outside of their city or town, it seems likely (if not certain) that cannabis deliveries as conducted under current regulations would not violate municipal prohibitions on retail sales.
Indeed, if voters, legislators, or municipal leaders had wanted to prohibit cannabis deliveries to “no towns,” that prohibition could have been codified in the massive omnibus cannabis policy bill, Ch. 180 of the Acts of 2022. And these stakeholders could still choose to change the law by state bill or municipal home-rule petition should that be the will of their constituents.
Prohibiting cannabis deliveries to “no towns” is a significant policy overreach that was likely born out of caution and good intentions, similar to many of the regulations discussed above. However, it exceeds the Commission’s mandate – supplementing regulatory prerogative for the judgment of voters and legislators – and unnecessarily hinders a category of licenses without contributing meaningfully to the public’s health and safety. We urge the Commission to repeal its prohibition on delivery to towns that prohibit retail sales.
Expand and improve exclusivity period
When the three-year exclusivity period was created for delivery, it was a groundbreaking step forward in the Commission’s work to promote equitable participation for disparately harmed communities. As documented throughout this letter and extensively by applicants and operators, overly burdensome regulations have significantly hindered any advantage offered by the initial half of the delivery license exclusivity period.
We recognize that the regulatory review process is lengthy and will continue to erode any advantage the exclusivity period offered cannabis equity businesses. We further recognize that this regulatory review process will likely overlap with the development of social consumption regulations – another sector of the market we hope the CCC will prioritize for exclusivity.
Given how the Commonwealth’s equity efforts have been stymied by overregulation and delays in establishing the Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund grant and loan program, we urge you to take a longer view at fostering equitable participation by extending the exclusivity period for both social consumption and delivery to at least seven years moving forward.
Further, when the exclusivity period was created, the Commission mandated that a study be conducted to determine if the period should be extended. Given what we’ve seen thus far in the licensing of cannabis equity businesses, we urge the Commission to amend that language to require a study be undertaken to determine if the period should be ended, with the default assumption being that we will have more work to do.
Thank you again for the opportunity to share this feedback. The Commission has a significant opportunity to expand economic opportunity for communities most harmed by the war on drugs and we hope that you will seize this opportunity to do so.
Thank you,
Shanel Lindsay, Co-Founder, Equitable Opportunities Now
Nicole Obi, President & CEO, Black Economic Council of Massachusetts
Tristan Thomas, Senior Policy & Advocacy Manager, Black Economic Council of Massachusetts
Armani White, Policy Co-Chair, Equitable Opportunities Now
Kevin Gilnack, Policy Co-Chair, Equitable Opportunities Now