On Wednesday, Oct. 30, representatives from EON and our Massachusetts Cannabis Equity Council were invited to testify before the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy regarding governance and operational issues at the Cannabis Control Commission.
EON and MCEC testified about the urgent need to expedite regulatory reviews and address the challenges most affecting equity operators while preserving the independence of the Cannabis Control Commission to ensure it remains responsive to stakeholders and doesn’t become politicized like the Department of Public Health was when overseeing medical marijuana.
Check out remarks from EON Policy Co-Chair Kevin Gilnack, Zèb Boutique Owner Drudys Ledbetter, and Dris Brands Owner Chris Fevry in the hearing video and read our full letter to the Committee below.
Watch the hearing
Read EON’s full testimony to the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy regarding the CCC
October 30, 2024
RE: Comments regarding the Cannabis Control Commission from Equitable Opportunities Now
Dear Chair Donahue, Chair Gomez, and Honorable Members of the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy,
Thank you very much for inviting Equitable Opportunities Now to offer testimony before the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy at your October 30th hearing, taking place at the State House from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
We appreciate your continued efforts to address underlying structural issues at the Cannabis Control Commission with other representatives from industry, consumers, and medical patient stakeholder groups.
Out of respect for the Committee’s limited time, please accept this letter on behalf of Equitable Opportunities Now and our Massachusetts Cannabis Equity Council as a supplement to our oral testimony during the hearing.
Thank you very much again for your continued attention to helping ensure that Massachusetts gets cannabis policy right. We commend your leadership and that of Speaker Mariano, Senate President Spilka, and Ways & Means Co-Chairs Rep. Michlewitz and Sen. Rodrigues for stewarding the Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund (CSETF), HCA reform, and municipal equity into existence, and your concern for ensuring the Cannabis Control Commission is responsive to stakeholders.
We are especially grateful that you’ve approached this issue from a place of listening and centering the voices of those most impacted by current policy and practices, and any potential changes in policy. We hope this is the first opportunity of many for Legislators and stakeholders to discuss these critical issues. Thank you again for your leadership and willingness to listen.
About EON & MCEC
Equitable Opportunities Now was founded in 2016 following the passage of Question 4 to advance equitable ownership and employment opportunities for communities harmed by the War on Drugs. Through education, advocacy, and programming, we empower people of color and those harmed by cannabis prohibition to participate and succeed in the regulated Massachusetts cannabis market.
Our 501c3 nonprofit organization was founded by longtime cannabis advocates including Shanel Lindsay, Shaleen Title, Ross Bradshaw, Armani White, and Laury Lucien to advance Question 4’s reparative justice goals. We are the longest-running advocacy organization for social equity cannabis business leaders in Massachusetts and have a track record of success in delivering programming and effective advocacy to support cannabis equity business leaders and workers.
This year, EON teamed up with the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA) and cannabis social equity businesses to create the Massachusetts Cannabis Equity Council (MCEC). The Massachusetts Cannabis Equity Council (MCEC) is an advisory committee of cannabis social equity business leaders that provides strategic guidance on EON’s programming and policy initiatives.
The following testimony is shaped by the expertise and experiences of primary author EON Policy Co-Chair Kevin Gilnack, co-authors EON Co-Founder Shanel Lindsay and Policy Co-Chair Armani White, testimony panelists Chris Fevry of Dris Brands and Drudys Ledbetter of Zèb Boutique and the input of all members of EON’s MCEC:
- Shanel Lindsay and Kevin Gilnack, Equitable Opportunities Now (Advisory)
- Tristan Thomas, Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (Advisory)
- Devin Alexander, Rolling Releaf
- Ross Bradshaw, New Dia
- Jaison Cramer, Greenerside Farms
- Kobie Evans, Pure Oasis
- Chris Fevry, Dris Brands
- Nike John, The Heritage Club
- Brian Keith, Rooted In
- Drudys Ledbetter, Zèb Boutique
- Laury Lucien, Cami Flower
- Kim Napoli, Esq., Underground Legacy Social Club LLC
- Ruben Seyde, Delivered, Inc.
- Mario Signore, Green Flash Delivery
- Jeff Similien, Lowkey
- Phil Smith, Freshly Baked
- Gabe Vieira, Zyp Run
- Armani White, Firehouse
- Ruben Seyde, Delivered, Inc.
Summary of Cannabis Equity Business Priorities
Based on numerous conversations with equity operators over the last tumultuous year, and earlier, there are several priority areas of concern related to the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) that include:
- Ensuring the CCC has adequate resources for staff, equity programs, and increasing responsibilities
- Protecting the quasi-independent nature of the CCC, including five Commissioners who are responsive and accessible to stakeholders appointed by a combination of Constitutional officers
- Enforcing and protecting cannabis license ownership limitations
- Continuing and increasing engagement between Commissioners and staff and stakeholders
- Reducing burdensome regulations that disproportionately impact social equity businesses
Protect an independent CCC
As you are likely aware, the Commonwealth’s medical cannabis program was originally overseen by the Department of Public Health within the Executive Office of Health and Human Services Secretariat under the Governor of the Commonwealth.
The significant amount of bureaucracy responsible for overseeing the medical program and the inherently politicized nature of decisions made by regulators acting on behalf of a single elected official led to significant delays in the rollout of medical cannabis, including a politicized initial application process that needed to be reset, outrageously restrictive testing limits, and the need to ultimately get our first medical dispensaries opened up with regulatory waivers after tremendous political pressure over two gubernatorial administrations.
Establishing cutting-edge and ever-evolving regulations for an industry that is growing in tandem with a new agency is inherently challenging – and even more so while doing so in open meetings. Despite stakeholders’ variety of misgivings about the CCC, the CCC has largely operated as intended: regularly engaging with and taking input from stakeholders, synthesizing that feedback, discussing it publicly, and creating stronger policy as a result.
The current structure of five Commissioners with diverse experiences and appointing criteria gives stakeholders a reasonable number of decision-makers to educate and engage with and provides the body with a reasonable number of votes for reaching decisions on challenging issues. Additional or fewer Commissioners would either give fewer perspectives for considering challenging issues or risk slowing the CCC down further with even longer debates.
Ensure CCC has sufficient resources
As you are likely aware, the CCC requested nearly $26 million for the FY25 budget but received only about $20 million, necessitating some challenging staffing and programmatic decisions.
We fully support the CCC’s request for $2.1 million in the FY25 supplemental budget to ensure critical priorities move forward including:
- Delivering programming for the fourth cohort of the CCC’s Social Equity Program (SEP)
- Implementing a social consumption public awareness campaign to protect public health and safety
- Enhancing the CCC’s technology to improve accessibility and transparency
- Adequately staffing the agency
- Improving testing lab oversight
- Conducting and sharing cannabis policy research
Fund the Social Equity Program (SEP)
While all of these issues are important, we wish to emphasize the importance of ensuring the CCC can deliver its SEP to advance its mandate from the Legislature to “to encourage and enable full participation in the marijuana industry of people from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement and to positively impact those communities” (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 94G, § 22.)
Improve CCC technology accessibility and transparency
As you are likely aware, there is a significant lobbying effort by large multi-state operators (MSOs) and other well-connected operators to erode the strong protections you enacted to encourage competition and avoid market consolidation, some of whom are alleged to already violate those rules, leading us to request the CCC conduct a full review of ownership compliance.
You may also be aware that the CCC retail finder, retail tracker, and other online tools have severe limitations including:
- Inability to filter for equity businesses
- Inability to search for delivery operators
- Inability to identify all the licenses a business or individual has ownership or control over
We are grateful that the U.S. Department of Justice has mandated improved accessibility standards and to the CCC for taking that mandate seriously. We hope the Legislature and CCC will take this opportunity to make critical improvements to the CCC’s technology to enhance both accessibility and transparency.
We urge you to give the CCC the resources it needs to update its Find A Retailer and License Tracker tool to ensure that patients, consumers, and community members can:
- Filter by status as Social Equity Business, Disadvantaged Business, unionized organizations, and other criteria determined by the CCC, Massachusetts Cannabis Advisory Board, and stakeholders
- Find delivery operators in their area
- Access all publicly available licensing documents, including the Positive Impact Plans (PIPs)
- Report progress towards PIPs if available
- View the owners of each licensee and click on the owner’s name to view all associated licensees and licensing documents
Equitable Opportunities Now was proud to work with Sen. Jason Lewis on S. 53, An Act to Support Cannabis Equity Businesses. This bill, which was favorably reported by the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy as S. 2597, begins to address equity concerns, including improvements to the CCC’s retail finder.
In light of recent developments, we urge the Senate Committee on Ways & Means to enhance S.2597 by adding language that ensures the CCC’s retail finder and license tracker enable the public can easily view license owners and their related licenses in addition to enabling patients and consumers to shop their values with more robust filters and searches.
Address challenges created by vacancies and absences
One of the challenges that have created unnecessary conflicts and delays in decision-making and operations has been a combination of staff turnover, prolonged vacancies, and Commissioner absences.
We encourage the Legislature to further consider the following potential policy enhancements:
- Encourage or require Appointing Authorities to appoint a caretaker Acting Commissioner when a Commissioner is suspended indefinitely or takes leave for more than 60 days
- Ensure the CCC has the resources it needs to fully staff the agency, including
- Robust SEP delivery
- Dedicated staff liaisons to provide technical assistance with equity applicants and licensees
- Adequate staffing of Enforcement & Inspections to ensure adequate enforcement of ownership limits, review of applications and other documents, and inspections, including any increased strain created with social consumption licensing
- Ensure the CCC has the resources it needs to offer competitive pay and benefits to staff
- Ensure all CCC employees are aware of their employment and whistleblower protections and aware of all avenues for addressing workplace conflicts or issues within the CCC’s structure and through appointing authorities, the Mass. Commission Against Discrimination, the Office of Inspector General, the Auditor, the Legislature, and any other channels for dispute resolution.
- Expedite and provide greater transparency to the process of removing a Commissioner and/or Chair as discussed below.
Potential enhancements to CCC statutes
To strengthen the CCC, the Legislature should further discuss the following potential changes:
- Clarify the powers, roles, and responsibilities of CCC Chair, Commissioners, and Executive Director based on stakeholder input and the experience and insights of past and current Commissioners and Executive Directors
- Review selection of Chair
- Provide a shorter and more transparent process for resolving removal of the Chair or Commissioners
Clarify the role of CCC Chair, Commissioners, and Executive Director
Unfortunately, disagreements and conflicts about the roles and powers of Commissioners and staff have consumed so much time and energy from the CCC over more than a year and across multiple chairs.
Given the internal strife that has been coming into increasing focus, it is to the credit of current and former Commissioners and staff who professionally and effectively the Commission has operated in addressing policy questions and executing their mandate as these issues have been mediated.
We encourage the Legislature to continue engaging stakeholders and current and former CCC Commissioners and staff, including the incoming executive director, to determine what aspects of the final governance charter should be codified into statute to ensure roles are clarified moving forward without being overly prescriptive.
Increase oversight and independence by reviewing Chair selection
When voters passed in 2016, Legislators learned from the lessons of medical under DPH and wisely looked to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission as a model for the CCC, removing it from being completely under the oversight of the Treasurer. As a compromise, the Treasurer retained authority to appoint the Chair.
According to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 10, § 76, the Cannabis Control Commission consists of:
- “1 of whom shall be appointed by the governor and shall have a background in public health, mental health, substance use or toxicology;
- 1 of whom shall be appointed by the attorney general and shall have a background in public safety;
- 1 of whom shall be appointed by the treasurer and receiver-general and shall have experience in corporate management, finance or securities; and
- 2 of whom shall be appointed by a majority vote of the governor, attorney general and treasurer and receiver-general, 1 of whom shall have professional experience in oversight or industry management, including commodities, production or distribution in a regulated industry and 1 of whom shall have a background in legal, policy or social justice issues related to a regulated industry. “ [emphasis added]
The law further specifies that the “treasurer and receiver-general shall designate the chair of the commission.” As a result of these provisions of Massachusetts General Law, the Chair of the Commission has always been the Treasurer’s appointee with a background in corporate management, finance, or securities.
We have heard universal feedback from stakeholders that the CCC would be stronger with more leaders who have experience in the cannabis industry and/or oversight, legal and policy issues, and equity and social justice.
To strengthen the independence of the Commission while also encouraging greater engagement and oversight from all appointing authorities, we urge you to consider alternative approaches to the appointment of the chair, including:
- Requiring the Treasurer to select the Commission Chair from among the four Commissioners that they do not appoint directly
- Requiring the Chair be appointed by a consensus vote of the three appointing authorities
- Requiring the Treasurer to appoint an ex officio Chair who isn’t a Commissioner to develop agendas and facilitate meetings
- Other approaches identified from additional conversations with stakeholders and former and current Commissioners
Provide transparent and expedient process for removing Commissioners and Chairs
Inherent to the nature of quasi-independent agencies like the Cannabis Control Commission is a desire by the Legislature to ensure regulators can make challenging policy and enforcement decisions free from political considerations.
The removal of Commissioners warrants a much higher level of scrutiny than the removal of appointed or hired officials within a Constitutional Officer’s administration. According to Massachusetts General Laws:
“The treasurer and receiver-general, the governor or the attorney general may remove a commissioner who was appointed by that appointing authority if the commissioner:
(i) is guilty of malfeasance in office;
(ii) substantially neglects the duties of a commissioner;
(iii) is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office;
(iv) commits gross misconduct; or
(v) is convicted of a felony.
The treasurer and receiver-general, the governor and the attorney general may, by majority vote, remove a commissioner who was appointed by majority vote of the state treasurer, the governor and the attorney general if the commissioner:
(1) is guilty of malfeasance in office;
(2) substantially neglects the duties of a commissioner;
(3) is unable to discharge the powers and duties of the commissioner’s office;
(4) commits gross misconduct; or
(5) is convicted of a felony.
Before removal, the commissioner shall be provided with a written statement of the reason for removal and an opportunity to be heard.”
We recognize appointment and employment issues raise important privacy and confidentiality considerations that impact Commissioners, staff, and appointing authorities. We urge the Legislature to consider how to continue to protect the privacy of Commissioners and employees involved in related investigations. We were deeply disappointed to see that employee names that should have been protected were revealed when the terminated Chair distributed confidential reports without sufficient redactions to protect employee privacy.
While balancing the privacy of Commissioners and staff is paramount, we urge you to further discuss how the removal process can provide stakeholders and the public with greater transparency about the reasons for removal and a much faster process for adjudicating removal.
To encourage expeditious resolution, the Legislature may want to consider mandating that written notice of reason(s) for removal be issued within seven days of removal and requiring an administrative hearing before appointing authorities within 30-90 days after the written statement is delivered.
To encourage independence, transparency, democracy, and fairness, the Legislature may want to consider requiring a majority vote of all appointing authorities for removal of any appointee
Address policy priorities of equity businesses
One of the best aspects of the CCC’s operations can also be its most frustrating: stakeholder engagement and the length of regulatory review.
We applaud the CCC for making great strides in engaging with stakeholders, including:
- Participation in numerous informal public listening sessions and stakeholder meetings
- Increasing frequency of public meetings
- Increasing frequency of public listening sessions on topics like outside cultivation and testing
- Listening sessions for subregulatory guidance documents that aren’t mandated by the regulatory review process
- Regular reporting on progress related to implementation of Ch. 180
- Continuous, ongoing review of regulations driven by stakeholder input
While delivery operators have been struggling for the past several years, and it would have been preferable to see regulatory relief happen sooner, the fact that the CCC is on the cusp of making big changes that will enable delivery operators, microbusinesses, and telehealth to succeed represents a victory and that the system is working – however slowly.
We strongly encourage the Legislature and CCC to consider how the Commission’s regulatory review process can advance more quickly, and further urge the Legislature to make critical statutory changes to resolve issues that the CCC has been unable to address due to lack of clear authority or mandate.
In addition to the policy and spending priorities discussed throughout this letter, we urge the CCC and Legislature to advance the favorably reported bills included in Appendix A and especially the following issues:
- Protect and enforce ownership caps and limits to encourage competition and avoid market consolidation
- Enable delivery to No Towns and hotels
- Provide greater data transparency
- Expand the impact of the CSETF by:
- Enabling loan guarantees to private lenders
- Ensuring EOED has the tools and personnel to receive private donations
- Allowing voluntary donations to the CSETF on income tax returns
- Extend exclusivity period for delivery and social consumption licenses
- Enable medical vertical de-integration with an exclusivity period for equity businesses that includes all of the benefits afforded to adult use social equity businesses
- Expand fee waivers and discounts
- Apply prioritization for every stage of review after the initial application
- Establish a working group to consider the feasibility and necessity of a statewide equity-only exclusivity period for all license types, a statewide 1:1 licensing ratio, a licensing moratorium, and a statewide canopy policy
- Adopt a one-agent-one-registration/badge system
- Encourage state and municipality to sell and lease unused properties to EE and SE businesses
Thank you and next steps
Thank you again for all of your work to address these issues. We are grateful for the opportunity to share feedback and policy ideas for strengthening the CCC.
If you have any questions or we can be of further assistance, please email EON Policy Co-Chairs Kevin Gilnack (kevin@masseon.com) and Armani White (armani@masseon.com).
Best regards,
Shanel Lindsay, Co-Founder, Equitable Opportunities Now
Kevin Gilnack, Policy Co-Chair, Equitable Opportunities Now
Armani White, Policy Co-Chair, Equitable Opportunities now
cc: Senate President Karen Spilka, House Speaker Ron Mariano, Ways & Means Committee Co-Chairs Sen. Michael Rodrigues and Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, Sen. Jason Lewis, Massachusetts Black & Latino Legislative Caucus, Cannabis Control Commission Acting Chair Bruce Stebbins, Commissioner Nurys Camargo, Commissioner Kimberly Roy, Commissioner Ava Concepcion, Acting Executive Director Debbie Hilton-Creek, Chief of Staff Andrew Carter, Director of Government Affairs Matt Giancola
Appendix A: Favorably cannabis reported bills with significant support
More than 40 leaders of social equity businesses, other cannabis businesses, advocates, and community leaders have signed an EON petition urging rejection of changes to cannabis license ownership restrictions and passage of the following bills before the end of the legislative session.
- Sen. Lewis’s S. 53 & Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy’s S. 2597, An Act to Support Cannabis Equity Businesses
- Rep. Rogers’ H. 117 & Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy’s H.4409, An Act relative to vertical integration of medical marijuana businesses
- Sen. Tran’s S.1119 and Rep. Kushmerek’s H.114, An Act relative to employment protections for medical marijuana patients & Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy’s H.4426, An Act prohibiting employment discrimination based on legal use of cannabis
- Sen. Fattman’s S.50 and Rep. Soter’s H.119 & Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy’s H.4087, An Act further defining eligibility for medical use marijuana
- Rep. Sullivan-Almeida’s H.122, An Act relative to a medical marijuana pilot program
- Sen. Velis’s S.62 and Rep. Donahue’s H.105, An Act relative to data transparency in the cannabis industry
- Sen. Cyr’s S.48, An Act relative to cannabis use by first responders
- Sen. Jehlen’s S. 52 and Rep. Tyler’s H. 123, An Act to create Cannabis career pathways for justice-involved individuals
- Rep. Sabadosa’s H.118, An Act relative to supporting sustainability in the cannabis industry