{"id":78226,"date":"2024-10-09T11:14:31","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T19:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/10\/09\/massachusetts-officials-expected-to-end-two-driver-rule-for-marijuana-deliveries-this-month\/"},"modified":"2024-10-09T19:46:07","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T03:46:07","slug":"massachusetts-officials-expected-to-end-two-driver-rule-for-marijuana-deliveries-this-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/10\/09\/massachusetts-officials-expected-to-end-two-driver-rule-for-marijuana-deliveries-this-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Officials Expected To End Two-Driver Rule For Marijuana Deliveries This Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about the two-driver rule since 2020. Now that we\u2019ve gotten to the finish line of implementing, there are people who feel left out.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Bhaamati Borkhetaria, CommonWealth Beacon<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission held a public hearing Monday on long-awaited regulations that the agency hopes to approve later this month, a week before a legislative oversight hearing is scheduled.<\/p>\n

The public hearing focused on a whole suite of regulatory changes\u2014the most popular one being the removal of the two-driver rule, which requires all deliveries of cannabis to be handled by teams of two people for security reasons. The rule has angered industry officials, who say it is unnecessary and costly.<\/p>\n

The commission voted back in December 2023 to modify the two-driver rule\u2014requiring one driver for delivery vehicles carrying less than $5,000 of product and two drivers for vehicles between $5,000 and the maximum $10,000\u2014but the implementation has taken just short of a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about the two-driver rule since 2020,\u201d said Ryan Dominguez, the head of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition at the public hearing. \u201cNow that we\u2019ve gotten to the finish line of implementing, there are people who feel left out. Those licensees are asking us to go to the Legislature. When we go to the Legislature, they respond back to us and say \u2018hey, isn\u2019t this a regulatory change? Why can\u2019t we get this changed through the CCC?\u2019 Our response to them is that we have good communications with the CCC, the commissioners are showing up\u2026but at the end of the day we are still waiting for some of these changes to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commission is expected to vote on the new regulations on October 22\u2014just a week before the Legislature is set to hold a legislative hearing<\/a> on October 30 where industry stakeholders will be invited to testify.<\/p>\n

Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro has criticized the state agency for not having clear leadership and for wasting state resources. He called it a \u201crudderless ship\u201d and urged the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy in July to pass legislation putting the agency under receivership until the Legislature is able to change the law to make it clearer what the roles of the chair and the executive editor of the commission are. In his testimony, Shapiro cited<\/a> the delays in the implementation of regulatory changes, particularly how long it was taking<\/a> the agency to implement the two-driver rule change.<\/p>\n

David O\u2019Brien, head of the Massachusetts Cannabis Business Association, another group of cannabis operators, echoed the same sentiment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpeaking frankly from the industry\u2019s perspective, they feel like they have to go to the Legislature because they feel like they are not getting answers fast enough from the commission,\u201d said O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

Both Dominguez\u2019s and O\u2019Brien\u2019s groups have been asked to testify at the legislative hearing.<\/p>\n

Dominguez, O\u2019Brien and others emphasized that the industry is changing rapidly and needs new regulations to meet the needs of consumers and operators.<\/p>\n

Dominguez said the change to allow marijuana delivery with one driver applies only to customer delivery and not to delivery between marijuana establishments. He and others advocated for the removal of the two-driver rule in all cases as a matter of regulatory consistency.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Kimberly Roy expressed support for the change in the current draft regulations and said that she would support it if the commission was able to make that change before these regulations win final approval. One of the agency\u2019s attorneys said he would contact the Secretary of State\u2019s office to find out whether the change would be possible in this regulatory cycle without a significant delay.<\/p>\n

Roy also said that she is open to further changes as they are needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that regulations should never fully be closed,\u201d said Roy to the press following the public meeting. \u201cWe should always keep them open in some capacity to respond to an industry that\u2019s still emerging and evolving. While keeping an eye on this fall, we\u2019re looking at the next fall, to make sure that we keep being responsive and responsible as regulators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many who testified at the commission\u2019s public hearing pushed the commissioners to extend the period during which only social equity companies can own a delivery license. Part of the promise of the exclusivity period was to help social equity companies get a leg up and become profitable but many say that the two-driver rule has prevented such an outcome. Many are worried that the exclusivity period will run out just as these new regulations come into place.<\/p>\n

The commission is set to review the exclusivity period during the winter of 2024. Otherwise, the exclusivity period will expire by April 1, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cChairman Hoffman said we were the guinea pigs of delivery,\u201d said Chris Fevry, the co-owner of Dris Delivery, referencing the past chair of the commission, Steven Hoffman. \u201cThankfully we didn\u2019t die in the experiment. We\u2019ve been close to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fevry has been advocating for the removal of the two-driver rule since 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of extending the exclusivity period, I hope it\u2019s as long as possible,\u201d said Fevry. \u201cAn extension is necessary because you almost killed the guinea pig in the experiment. The guinea pig needs time to recover from the damage that was done by the two-driver rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioner Nurys Camargo defended how long it\u2019s taken for the commission to get to this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to apologize for how long stuff could be taking, or has taken,\u201d said Camargo to the press following the public meeting. \u201cI think we have been responsible. We\u2019re going to continue to do our work here and stay focused on what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<\/em> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/commonwealthbeacon.org\/marijuana\/cannabis-commission-nearing-end-on-two-driver-changes\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/p>\n

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Massachusetts Marijuana Agency May Need To Eliminate Some Programs Due To Budget Shortfall<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The post Massachusetts Officials Expected To End Two-Driver Rule For Marijuana Deliveries This Month<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking about the two-driver rule since 2020. Now that we\u2019ve gotten to the finish line of implementing, there are people who feel left out.\u201d By Bhaamati Borkhetaria, CommonWealth Beacon The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission held a public hearing Monday on long-awaited regulations that the agency hopes to approveContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78227,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78226\/revisions\/78227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}