Cannabis Control Commission members call the costly and confusing current process for licensing individual agents “redundant” and “disincentivizing”
Question: How many people work in the Massachusetts cannabis industry?
Answer: It depends on who you ask and when.
A Jan. 29, 2024 Cannabis Control Commission public meeting packet noted there are 22,716 approved and pending Marijuana Establishment agents, and 6,206 approved and pending Medical Marijuana Treatment Center agents.
But according to a Jan. 16, 2024 CCC media release, “To date, there are currently 20,280 individual agents serving the adult- and medical-use sectors of Massachusetts’ industry.”
Further muddying the matter, per a CCC presentation last Thursday, the breakdown of badged agents was as follows: 28,084 badged agents (6,050 medical, 22,069 adult-use), with 6,483 individuals holding multiple badges.
And in response to questions for this article, an agency spokesperson wrote, “As of Jan. 24, there were 14,751 adult-use and 5,282 medical-use individual employees working in the industry as Registered Agents, reaching a total of 20,033 unique individuals.”
The lack of clarity is frustrating, but the agency appears to finally be heeding calls to streamline its scheme around agent badging, and at the aforementioned public meeting last week, members started a discussion on the matter and even identified critical “issues with the current system.”
The many badges of Bay State cannabis workers
According to the CCC, every individual who is approved to work for a CCC licensee has a “unique industry identification number” for “each licensed establishment at which they are employed.” But for each establishment they work at, an individual may need a cascade of badges—separate laminates for entering different sections, buildings, verticals, and locations of a workplace.
With more than 6,000 people currently holding multiple badges that allow them to work in various roles at one or more companies, and close to 40,000 badges surrendered from the dawn of adult-use sales through the middle of last year, per CCC figures—some of them by people who have since gone on to secure other badges under new unique ID numbers—it can be hard to even determine rough estimates.
At last week’s public meeting, CCC members addressed the long-festering confusion over badges, signaling a willingness to finally tackle the subject head-on. Introducing the agenda item, commissioner and acting Chair Bruce Stebbins said, “We’ve all heard about this issue,” acknowledging that he’s been contemplating badging since it came up during a hearing on outdoor cultivation last August in Great Barrington.
Simmering outrage over the badging situation
Industry stakeholders have voiced their frustrations about badging since the first laminate was issued for medical employees—back then, under the purview of the state’s Department of Public Health—a decade ago.
In addition to mass confusion, the commonwealth, and by extension taxpayers and license holders are burdened by the sheer cost and breadth of physical badging. Over the past three years, the CCC spent more than $400,000 on agent-only badging costs. It costs $7 to produce each badge.
And then there are the direct fees that license holders must endure. First, there is an initial $115 registration charge for any Marijuana Establishment Agent “or any other position designated as an agent by the Commission,” multiplied by however many badges the agent has, then renewed annually for another $115. Plus background checks, mandatory vendor training in some cases, etc.
Last May, we looked into concerns around badging—the cost and headache, but also the apparent messiness of it all. In response to our inquiries, a CCC spokesperson wrote, “At any time, designated Commission staff can identify the number of individuals working in the licensed cannabis industry as well as the number of jobs they represent.” They continued, “As of May 23, there were 15,178 active, unique industry identification numbers in the adult-use industry that identify specific individuals.”
But that information had not been made public until we reported those numbers, leaving everyone from headhunters to prospective new workers in the dark about the number of positions actually held in the licensed adult-use and medical markets. The CCC spokesperson also wrote, “The Commission shares updated data regarding individual employees and/or badged registered agent numbers frequently, whether through its public meeting materials packets, annual legislative reports, testimony, and policy letters to members of the Legislature and the Executive Branch, among others.”
That description didn’t hold up to close scrutiny either. At the time, the commission may have claimed that it internally knew how many people worked in the licensed cannabis industry—roughly 15,000, per the spokesperson—but the only data available on the CCC website regarding agents listed the total number of applicants, along with race and gender tallies.
Nearly a whole year later, the issue is still puzzling.
Next steps on badging changes for the Cannabis Control Commission
Melissa Rutherford, a compliance specialist who has analyzed CCC employment data, explained “the human cost” of the current Mass system in our article on badging last year (which used research from EzHire Cannabis). In addition to the financial toll it takes on businesses of all sizes, she said the difficulty around getting badged or rebadged is pushing people out of the industry and leaving them with negative impressions. Plus, “When you cease to be employed, your badge goes away, and so does all the education that goes with it.”
As Rutherford put it, while people who are fired or laid off from a cannabis job can receive financial help from the state, the Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance does not steer people toward other careers in the weed biz. Nor are there expedited badge-processing options for those with prior experience at CCC-licensed operations. Adding to the inconvenience, every new hire needs time-consuming Responsible Vendor Training and forms signed by a notary, making for piles of paperwork outside of the already inefficient digital system. Even if the commission’s application processing time decreases, that’s still only after several prerequisite boxes are checked.
Judging by the conversation between commissioners last week, they understand the stakes. Acting Chair Stebbins said, “We want to keep people employed in the industry. … We’ve all heard the same conversations, we’ve all heard the same arguments, and I think it’s time for us to push ahead.” He also acknowledged, “One employee, one employer, multiple badges—that seems redundant.” Commissioner Kimberly Roy added that the current regulatory scheme is “disincentivizing,” since people “have to start from square-one again” with badging if they switch employers.
Members also addressed the “possible innovation opportunity” of transitioning “from a physical badge to an electronic version,” while Stebbins gave a presentation outlining three “issues with the current system”:
- Licensed Marijuana Agents are required to have a badge for each Marijuana Establishment licensee regardless of whether the licenses are held by the same company. Can we change our regulations to allow for one badge per employee per company?
- If an agent is laid off, how do they quickly find an opportunity to work for a new licensee without the regulatory delay of applying for a new license?
- Can we find an opportunity for a Licensed Marijuana Agent to work for another licensee for a brief period of time to help with outdoor cultivation, for example? Temporary license?
In considering solutions, commissioners discussed potentially having the badge “follow” the agent, in which case individuals would apply for state licensing, and as long as they’re current and renew on a specified basis, they can use it for employment anywhere in the Mass industry. But they also recognized that such a move would give way to another set of questions; Stebbins asked his colleagues, “Do we want to be flooded with registration applications from people who may not go on to the job?”
As Rutherford told Talking Joints Memo, the “fix isn’t easy, because the system that tracks all of this is baked and paid for. … Whoever did the initial setup of the badging system, it’s just absolutely insane.”