An 81-year-old woman from Martha’s Vineyard drove to the Island Time dispensary last week to select up her usual order of marijuana, only to be told by owner Geoff Rose that the provision cabinet was empty – he had been forced to temporarily close three weeks earlier after selling all of his buds and gummies.
If nothing changes, the island’s only other cannabis dispensary will sell its entire supply by September at the newest and Martha’s Vineyard will run out of weed entirely, affecting over 230 registered medical users and 1000’s more recreational users.
The problem lies in the placement. Although voters in Massachusetts have decided to legalize marijuana More than seven years ago, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission took the view that transporting marijuana across the ocean — whether by ship or plane — could violate federal law, despite the counterargument that there have been routes to Martha’s Vineyard that lay entirely throughout the state’s territorial waters.
The conundrum prompted Rose to file suit last month against the commission, which now says finding an answer to the island’s marijuana problem is its top priority. Three of the five commissioners visited Martha’s Vineyard on Thursday to talk directly with affected residents.
Tensions between conflicting state and federal regulations have played out across the country since states legalized marijuana. California lawFor example, it explicitly allows the transport of cannabis to shops on Catalina Island, while Hawaii last yr has solved its own difficulties in transporting medical marijuana between the islands by changing a law that permits its transportation.
Federal authorities have also modified their position. Last month, the Justice Department postponed for reclassification Marijuana is taken into account a less dangerous drug, although recreational use remains to be not legal.
For several years, dealers on Martha’s Vineyard and the nearby island of Nantucket thought they’d found an answer. They grew and tested their very own weed in order that they now not needed to import it from across the ocean.
But Fine Fettle, a Connecticut-based company that was the one business marijuana grower on Martha’s Vineyard and likewise operates the island’s other dispensary, told Rose last yr that it intended to stop growing marijuana on Martha’s Vineyard and shut its business when existing supplies ran out.
Benjamin Zachs, who runs Fine Fettle’s Massachusetts operations, said that when the corporate opened in Martha’s Vineyard, it knew that transporting marijuana on federal waterways was illegal.
“To be honest, we thought at the beginning that this would be a good thing for business,” said Zachs. “A conquered market.”
But over time, marijuana became cheaper and more varied on the Massachusetts mainland, while the fee of hiring testers on the island rose, making it uneconomical to proceed such a distinct segment business, Zachs said. He added that many individuals bring their very own supplies over by ferry.
But buying weed on the ferry might be expensive and time-consuming for islanders. There is not any dispensary in Woods Hole, where the ferry docks, in order that they must either take an Uber or bring a automotive, and in the summertime, vehicle space is at a premium. That leaves medical users like Sally Rizzo wondering how one can get marijuana. She finds the drug helps along with her back problems and insomnia.
“The nice thing about getting it from a pharmacy is you can tell them exactly what you’re looking for and know the milligram count, the strength and the contents,” said Rizzo, who filed an affidavit in support of Rose’s lawsuit.
Rose, 77, has lived on Martha’s Vineyard for greater than 20 years and opened his Island Time store three years ago. For now, he keeps his five regular employees on the payroll. The pharmacy’s green logo looks like a hippie version of the famous Starbucks emblem, with a relaxed woman smelling a blossom beneath the words “Stop and smell the flower.” But Rose is anything but relaxed lately.
“I’m on the verge of going out of business,” he said. “While I recognize the Commission’s efforts to address the problem, I felt the only way to get immediate help was to file a lawsuit. I wasn’t going to sit idly by. I had to do something.”
Rose was joined in his lawsuit by Green Lady dispensary on Nantucket, which for now continues to have its own domestically grown supply but faces the identical high costs of on-site testing.
In the lawsuit, Rose describes how he told the commission in November that his company was facing an existential crisis because Fine Fettle would now not grow marijuana. In March, he took a risk by buying some marijuana on the mainland and having it shipped over by ferry.
However, the commission ordered Rose to stop selling the product he was supplying and imposed an administrative hold. A number of weeks later, the commission finally released the marijuana but told Rose he was not allowed to provide any more. In his lawsuit, Rose complains in regards to the commission’s “arbitrary, unreasonable and inconsistent policy against transportation across state waters.”
Island Time is represented by Vicente, a law firm specializing in cannabis cases, and agreed to delay an injunction against the commission until June 12 after the commission announced it might begin settlement talks.
“We are cautiously optimistic that we can reach a resolution. However, if we are unable to do so, we are prepared to present our arguments in court,” said Vicente’s attorney Adam Fine.
Until last week, the commission said it might not comment on pending litigation, saying only that there have been no special regulations in place to permit marijuana to be transported from the mainland to the islands. However, when commissioners traveled to Martha’s Vineyard, they assured residents that they were all on the identical page.
“This is of course our highest priority because we do not want an industry to collapse on the islands,” said Commissioner Kimberly Roy.
She said nobody could have foreseen such an issue in the provision chain and so they want to resolve it.
“It’s a weird dichotomy,” she said. “The whole industry is illegal at the federal level. But that’s evolving, too. We’re just trying to stay responsive and flexible.”
