The new MA Department of Public Health Medical Marijuana regulations are out, and patients hoping for choice for affordable access to their medicine just got sold out.
After months of hearings and a final comment session from caregivers, patients, advocates, and pot profiteers,
the DPH has decided to implement regulations that will all but ensure that almost every caregiver in Massachusetts will be non-compliant.
While speaking to a reporter with MassLive, Matt Allen of Mass Patients Advocacy Alliance called the new regulations “impressive.” I challenged Allen to provide me with a list of caregivers in MA that would be 100 percent in compliance with the MA DPH regulations that require caregivers to gift patients medicine with no monetary compensation. Allen did not respond to my request, and even if he did, would be unable to provide that list to patients in Massachusetts. Why? Because that list does not and never will exist. I have yet to find one caregiver in Massachusetts who is not charging patients for medicine. So many caregivers offering service, and not one in compliance—is this “impressive?”
Allen and MPAA have not responded “on the record” to my challenge.
Jim Fowler, a Maine caregiver pipes up, “From the eyes of a third party outsider who is a legal caregiver to three in a neighboring state, I feel that these rules to a poorly written law are absolutely 100 percent certifiably asinine. I see that unlike our state—that believes in providing means of welfare and income for her own before we consider an outsider—
The state of Massachusetts has decided to get their knee pads out to welcome the thrusting advances of big marijuana business from afar. I directly see this as a big ‘F you’ from the state capital to the people who count most, her medicinal cannabis patients.”
Where does this leave the patients? For the near future, patients will be relying on caregivers who are not complying with state law, while waiting for mega dispensaries to open. Massachusetts dispensaries (unlike the caregivers) will more than likely be breaking federal laws in regards to plant and weight counts, all set up by the “sensible” and “impressive” regulations. Sound less than “impressive” to you?
It did not need to be this way.
Massachusetts can do better than this, and should look to replicate Maine and Rhode Island’s existing medical marijuana programs.
Otherwise, it is exactly as Fowler says—a bad joke on patients in the favor for a select few oligarchs charging patients $400-500 an ounce, due to the risk they are taking in being shut down and having assets seized by the Feds at any moment’s notice.
With the Federal prohibition still existing for anybody caught with over a few pounds and/or 99 plants, smaller is indeed better in regards to providing safe and reliable access to medical marijuana.
So why doesn’t MA DPH and MPAA recognize this reality?
Michael Malta, aka The King of Pot, a legal MA medical marijuana patient, has an opinion on that.
“If you are currently allowed to grow your medicine, then why not after the regs go into effect? Because the big money is here.”
“There is nothing that helps with these new regs, it only helps to deter patients from even bothering to get their medical marijuana card.”
Or as Nichole Snow Dawson, wife of a legal MA patient, put it—“The idea of a medical marijuana system was to replace the black market system we already have. We wanted to see safer resources available to patients. So we’re going to be held to finding caregivers that work out the goodness of their hearts, while holding down a full time job? Growing is a full time job. Also, one patient per caregiver means that there will be more grows and potentially far less quality. All of the work that a caregiver will do is not supposed to be compensated for. The patient pays for the supplies and equipment. Because of this, there will be thousands more grows and less effective medicine. So what kind of medicine will people produce? Mold, fungus, hello? No one is going to get it right their first try.
How will taking the incentive out of the equation for an established caregiver help patients?
“It’s not going to help, only hurt.”