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For those longing for the day when you can purchase a marijuana edible or smoke a joint in a neighborhood pot café, we give you a whiff of hope.
State regulators last week said they intend to present their latest configuration of the rules governing establishments for marijuana use in a social setting before the end of the year, several years removed from when the Cannabis Control Commission initially broached the subject.
Back in October 2018, CCC regulators predicted that a time when marijuana users would be able to congregate at an establishment and socially consume pot remained years away.
They weren’t just blowing smoke. Nearly six years from the date of that statement, that eventuality remains a pipe dream.
The CCC has the authority under the 2016 voter-approved law legalizing adult use of marijuana to license social consumption sites – including marijuana cafés or marijuana licenses for movie theaters – but regulators opted to delay that part of the industry while they studied how other states and cities handled it.
While the Department of Revenue licenses “smoking bars” where patrons can buy and smoke tobacco products, the definition for those businesses isn’t sufficient to also cover the smoking of marijuana, regulators said at the time.
It was noted that in Denver, that city used a “bring your own marijuana” system, in which the city licenses locations where people can vaporize or eat marijuana products they buy elsewhere.
If the CCC were going to move forward with social consumption, it needed to determine exactly how consumption facilities – whether they allow smoking or not – would fit in with the new provisions of the law, said then Commissioner Jennifer Flanagan.
In a supplemental budget he filed in March of that year, Gov. Charlie Baker proposed – unsuccessfully – a change to the state’s marijuana law to spell out a local initiative petition process for communities considering on-site consumption of marijuana.
Baker wrote at the time that the changes were developed in consultation with the CCC staff and that they were intended “to clarify and simplify” the law.
It seems not much has been done to advance that idea in the intervening years until this recent development.
Acting Chair Bruce Stebbins told the Cannabis Advisory Board Thursday the CCC group that’s been working on social consumption issues has begun “to build out what the actual regulations will look like.” He indicated that the next steps involve running scenarios by the governor, attorney general and treasurer, as well as other key stakeholders.
Stebbins, the point person in efforts to regulate social marijuana consumption, said work is progressing toward a regulatory “framework.”
“We’re outlining and preparing our final draft framework with an internal working team. We are targeting before the end of the year for the public presentation,” he said. “Then we’ll engage in the promulgation process and continue ongoing outreach.”
A 2019 regulatory framework that called for rolling out cannabis cafés and other social consumption sites with a 12-municipality pilot program was discarded by vote of the CCC in May 2023, and the agency began with its latest social consumption effort.
Stebbins highlighted three pillars essential to a successful rollout: public awareness, training for social consumption site workers, and municipal outreach.
He mentioned that the CCC has asked for a supplemental appropriation of $500,000 for a social consumption awareness campaign.
“Commissioner Stebbins and I have been — anyone and everyone that will listen in state government — we’ve been talking to about funding for this public awareness campaign. I think it’s key. This is going to be not a completely new thing to Massachusetts — social consumption is happening, but it’s happening in the legacy market, right? And it’s also happening in private places,” CCC Commissioner Nurys Camargo said Thursday.
“But we just need to make sure that we’re educating consumers. A lot of canna-curious folks are going to be checking out these spots and places and events. And we’ve been talking a lot to law enforcement. The education that still needs to happen with law enforcement is huge. So, I’m just excited about that.”
So, while the guidelines for the consumption of marijuana products in a social setting still remain in the formative stage, the institutional slow-walking of this concept has denied the state an additional revenue source.
In Massachusetts, where people who publicly smoke pot risk a $100 fine, advocates say cannabis cafés or similar businesses would have a built-in market, including tourists and residents of apartments or public housing where marijuana use isn’t allowed.
Even as retail marijuana prices sank last year to their lowest point since pot shops opened in 2018, recreational consumption remained big business.
The state’s cannabis retailers recorded a record $1.56 billion in sales.
So, when will pot cafés become a reality in this state, given the CCC’s current chaotic condition?
No time soon, but hopefully before six more years pass.
