VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. An 81-year-old woman from Martha’s Vineyard drove to the Island Time dispensary last week in search of her usual order of marijuana. But owner Geoff Rose had to tell her the cupboard was empty – he had been forced to temporarily close three weeks earlier after selling every last button and gum.
Unless something changes, the island’s only other cannabis dispensary will sell all of its remaining supplies by September at the latest, and Martha’s Vineyard will be completely weed-free, affecting more than 230 registered medical users and thousands of recreational users.
The problem comes down to location. Although Massachusetts voters chose to legalize marihuana More than seven years ago, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission took the position that transporting marijuana across the ocean — whether by boat or plane — risks running afoul of federal laws. This is despite the counterargument that there are routes to Martha’s Vineyard that remain entirely within the state’s territorial waters.
The conundrum led Rose to file a lawsuit last month against the commission, which now says finding a solution to the island’s marijuana problem has become a top priority. Three of the five commissioners visited Martha’s Vineyard on Thursday to hear directly from affected residents.
Tension between conflicting state and federal regulations has spread across the country as states have legalized marijuana. California lawfor example, expressly allows the transportation of cannabis to stores on Catalina Island, while Hawaii last year dealt with its own difficulties in transporting medical marijuana between islands by changing a law to allow it.
Federal authorities have also changed their position. The Department of Justice last month moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, although it is not yet legal for recreational use.
For several years, vendors on Martha’s Vineyard and the neighboring island of Nantucket thought they had a solution. They grew and tested their own marijuana, eliminating the need to import it from across the water.
But Fine Fettle, a Connecticut-based company that was the only commercial grower on Martha’s Vineyard and also runs another island dispensary, told Rose last year that it planned to stop growing marijuana on Martha’s Vineyard and would close its store when supplies ran low. he finished.
Benjamin Zachs, who runs Fine Fettle’s Massachusetts operations, said when the company opened on Martha’s Vineyard, he knew it was illegal to transport marijuana through federal waterways.
“Honestly, when it all started, we thought this would be good for business,” Zachs said.
But over time, marijuana became cheaper, with more varied options on the Massachusetts mainland, while the costs of hiring testers on the island increased, making it uneconomical to continue a niche operation, Zachs said. He added that many people bring their own supplies on the ferry.
But for people living on the island, taking the ferry to buy weed can be expensive and time-consuming. There is no dispensary in Woods Hole, where the ferry lands, so they have to take an Uber from there or bring a car, and vehicle space is in high demand during the summer. This leaves medical users like Sally Rizzo wondering how they will access marijuana. She finds that the medicine helps alleviate back problems and insomnia.
“The nice thing about getting this at a dispensary is you can say specifically what you’re looking for, you know the milligrams, you know the potency and what’s in it,” said Rizzo, who filed a statement in support of Rose’s lawsuit.
Rose, 77, has lived on Martha’s Vineyard for more than 20 years and opened her Island Time store three years ago. For now, he keeps his core team of five on the payroll. The dispensary’s green logo looks like a hippie version of the famous Starbucks emblem, with a relaxed woman smelling a flower beneath the words “Stop and Smell the Flower.” But Rose is anything but relaxed these days.
“I’m about to go out of business,” he said. “While I recognize the commission’s efforts to resolve the issue, I truly felt the only way to get some immediate relief was to file a lawsuit. I wasn’t going to stay on the sidelines. I had to do something.”
Rose was joined in his process by the Green Lady dispensary on Nantucket, which for now continues to have its own local supply but also faces the same high costs of on-site testing.
In the filing, Rose describes how he told the commission in November that his business faced an existential crisis because Fine Fettle would stop growing weed. In March, he took a risk by purchasing marijuana on the mainland and transporting it by ferry.
But the commission ordered Rose to stop selling the product he had sent, placing him on administrative suspension. The commission finally cleared the marijuana a few weeks later, but told Rose he could no longer board. In her lawsuit, Rose complains about the commission’s “arbitrary, irrational and inconsistent policy against transportation in the state’s territorial waters.”
Island Time is represented by Vicente, a company specializing in cannabis cases. It agreed to delay an emergency injunction against the commission until June 12, after the commission said it would enter into discussions about a settlement.
“We are cautiously optimistic that we will be able to reach a resolution, but if we are unable to do so, we will be prepared to present arguments in court,” said Vicente’s attorney, Adam Fine.
Until last week, the commission maintained that it would not comment on pending litigation other than to say that there were no special accommodations to allow marijuana to be transported from the mainland to the islands. But when commissioners traveled to Martha’s Vineyard, they assured residents they were all on the same page.
“Obviously, this is a super priority for us because we don’t want to see the collapse of an industry on the islands,” said Commissioner Kimberly Roy.
She said no one could have predicted there would be such a problem in the supply chain and they wanted to resolve it.
“It’s a funny juxtaposition,” she said. “The entire industry is federally illegal. But this is also evolving. We’re just trying to stay responsive and agile.”
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