The state Cannabis Control Commission has amended adult use laws to allow for home delivery of recreational marijuana.
While the move is intended to improve equity and help minorities and those impacted by the war on drugs, it’s unclear what form delivery of adult use marijuana will take on the Outer Cape.
“Cape Cod is very white, so we face different issues here,” Provincetown resident Anna May Meade, a cannabis industry advocate who co-wrote the book “Cannabis: A Big Sisters’ Guide,” said in a recent interview with the Banner.
Home delivery of marijuana has been allowed under the state’s medical marijuana law, and the state commission has been thinking about a non-medical delivery framework for about three years, according to Grant Smith Ellis of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition, a cannabis advocacy group.
The state commission approved the change on Nov. 30, and a handful of companies have already begun applying for delivery licenses, according to the commission’s website. However, for the first three years, the commission will only grant licenses to social equity program participants and economic empowerment applicants, according to Smith Ellis.
To qualify for the commission’s equity programs, a business must be run by a person or an entity from an area that has been disproportionately impacted, including arrests and incarceration, by the war on drugs. In addition, eligibility includes those with marijuana convictions in the state or with a close relative who has been convicted on a marijuana-related charge.
The possibility of independently-operated delivery services has piqued the interest of Zachary Ment of Truro, founder of The Piping Plover Cannabis Dispensary, an adult use marijuana retail store that he and his team plan to open next year at 10 Main St. in Wellfleet.
“They would be a vendor of mine, and the other stores, so they could have a bigger offering,” Ment said of the possibility. “And they would be responsible in their own way of who they’re delivering to and the safety of getting it there.”
The state commission’s delivery policy will create two delivery license types: a “marijuana delivery operator” license that can buy products wholesale from growers and manufacturers and sell to their own customers, and a “marijuana courier” license that can charge a fee to make deliveries from state-licensed adult use marijuana retailers.
The delivery operator model would allow companies to obtain their own cars and secure vault or storage facilities to store products from wholesalers and deliver individual orders after receiving requests. They would not be allowed to store products in their car, Smith Ellis said.
Generally, adult use marijuana deliveries would only be made in Massachusetts towns that allow the retail sale of the product.
The idea of home delivery of adult use marijuana does have hurdles to contend with, though, including objections from large adult use marijuana companies.
After the delivery operator model was suggested, the Commonwealth Dispensary Association sent a letter to the state commission at the end of November prior to the Nov. 30 vote. The group, an organization of Massachusetts cannabis industry leaders, opposed the proposed model and threatened to sue, given concerns that corporate interests could be attracted.
The association represents several large marijuana companies in the state, most of whom are not led by social equity program participants, Ellis Smith said. Curaleaf, which opened the first adult use marijuana retail store on Cape Cod, in Provincetown, last year, is listed as a member of the association. Despite repeated requests for comment made to Curaleaf officials, the Banner wasn’t able to confirm if the company signed the letter of opposition.
While home delivery for adult use marijuana seems inevitable based on the direction that the marijuana industry is headed, Ment did say he worries that home delivery leaves open a lot of opportunities for mistakes.
At brick and mortar dispensaries, there are security cameras, security guards, multiple identification checks and other standard operating procedures to ensure that no one under the age of 21 gets a hold of products, Ment said.
Given his support of those strict regulations, Ment worries that an incident could occur, for example, where someone under age obtains products from an adult use retail store, which could lead to a negative story in the media.
“I understand that we’re doing something a lot of people don’t agree with and it’s still very difficult for people to wrap their minds around that it’s legal at all,” Ment said. “You have to be really careful to avoid it getting into the wrong hands.”
Meade, though, believes the security requirements for delivery businesses are too restrictive, as companies are required to take “cost prohibitive” measures in order to comply.
“It’s like ‘Here, run this race against alcohol, cannabis has to wear a suit of armor and alcohol gets new sneakers,” Meade said of the legislative restrictions on both industries. “Where is the return on investment on that kind of margin?”
Additionally, in a pandemic particularly, delivery is “key,” Meade said, especially for those who use cannabis for medical reasons, and are wary of going into public for fear of contracting COVID-19.
Meade has been an advocate for social equity in the cannabis industry, so she believes the new license options will be able to help potential operators by providing them “some kind of pathway toward a business model.”
The first delivery companies will likely begin operation in the first half of 2021, Smith Ellis said.
Since the legalization of recreational marijuana in 2016 in Massachusetts, there has been a struggle with applications from minority-led companies going through the lengthy process of obtaining final licenses. Those equity companies in the state that have weathered the process and commenced operation have been successful, he said.
“To really get that number on par with the number of non-equity operators that are open requires a unique solution,” he said.
Part of that solution could be the delivery licenses, which will revolutionize the cannabis industry in the state in terms of local ownership and “creating generational wealth in communities that were ravaged by the drug war,” Smith Ellis said.
Information from State House News Service was used in this report.
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