By Duke London

 

Massachusetts voters approved the cultivation and sale of medical marijuana for predetermined medical conditions back in 2012, but the state calls itself home to a mere six dispensaries. 

So where are the rest?

Most are still awaiting approval for their licenses. A whopping 174 dispensary applications are currently held up in legal limbo with Massachusetts, which would be considered excessive traffic even in the Commonwealth.

One issue holding up the approval process could be a loophole that local governments are using to coerce these hopeful marijuana business owners out of hundreds of thousands of dollars before they can even open their doors.

In 2013, Martha Coakley was the presiding Attorney General of Massachusetts, and she made the stipulation that communities “are not permitted to enact a total ban on marijuana treatment centers.” However, this measure gave local governments too much power, as they could regulate these businesses by utilizing local zoning bylaws and requiring prospective dispensary owners to garner approval letters before opening their doors.

While Coakley initially intended to give the cities and towns of Massachusetts some say into which dispensaries would be approved at the local level, she surely didn’t expect the rule to allow for the extortion of small business owners under the guise of consumer protection.

Because the state requires a “letter of consent” from the local government before approving a dispensary application, the city or town can essentially hold the business owner hostage for whatever they want, which was exactly the case for a newly-approved Worcester dispensary recently.

As it currently stands, people that want to open dispensaries in Massachusetts have little choice but to pay exorbitant fees to the communities they wish to help patients within. The Boston Globe reported that Good Chemistry of Massachusetts had finally gotten their hands on an approval letter from the city of Worcester, but not before having to fork over $450,000 throughout the first three years of the “agreement” and $200,000 annually after, not to mention 2.5% of their total revenue and a $10,000 annual donation to local charities.

“It’s quite clear if you don’t negotiate an agreement, you don’t get a letter,” said James E. Smith, the Boston attorney who represents small business owners that want to open marijuana businesses in the state and has negotiated these deals in the past.

The City of Springfield is currently in negotiations on a deal that would prove to be especially ludicrous: a 10-year deal consisting of annual $50,000 donations to local law enforcement and a tax on gross sales starting at 3% and ascending to a staggering 7% by the end of the agreement.

The real victims of this greed are the patients in need of access to their medication, as the price gouging will undoubtedly be passed down to the consumer. These selfish practices are what keeps the black market alive, as politicians continue to fight over tax money. Citizens will have a chance to voice their opinion on the matter come November when Massachusetts is set to vote on recreational marijuana legalization. There is a section of the new legislation that prevents local governments from squeezing new recreational shops for these “approval letters.” Because the new law would theoretically only protect recreational shops, leaving medical dispensaries open to continued unfair practices by the localities, the state would have to review the matter. Hopefully, under a magnifying glass, Massachusetts sees the immense problem with their current method of dispensary approval and the need to regulate these municipalities’ gross misuse of the legal marijuana infrastructure.