Jeremiah MacKinnon: “We don’t need band-aids. Patients need real access to their medicine.”
This week’s Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission hearing on the state’s Medical Use of Marijuana Program was a watershed event. The agency and industry face many issues, but the troubles before patients are some of the most pressing, and the action or inaction the body takes in the upcoming months will dictate med accessibility for vulnerable people statewide for years to come.
And so in addition to our wall-to-wall coverage of the consequential hearing, we are also running some of the poignant, heartfelt, and informed words of those who offered input. The following is the complete testimony of Jeremiah MacKinnon. The president and executive director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, he came to CCC headquarters in Worcester with his brother Zachary, who is a registered patient with severe autism and epilepsy, and his mother Jeannine who uses cannabis for her fibromyalgia and Chron’s disease.
Enough is enough. For too long, patients have been left behind.
For too long, the medical marijuana program has been neglected, overlooked, and, in many ways, set up to fail.
This Commission has the power to change that, and l’m here to demand that you do.
While minor adjustments have been made, the fundamental issues threatening the viability of the medical program remain in place.
The medical program is hemorrhaging, and the Commission is debating how many band-aids it will take to stop the bleeding. But we don’t need band-aids. Patients need real access to their medicine.
And there is one change—one decision—that could stop the collapse of the medical program: Let dispensaries sell medical cannabis without forcing them to grow it themselves. Forcing every medical dispensary to grow its own plants is the single biggest barrier to patient access.
It piles on costs and complexity, effectively blocking most operators from the medical market, and leaving patients with fewer places to get their medicine.
There are almost 400 recreational dispensaries in Massachusetts. And yet, there are only 93 medical dispensaries. All because you won’t let dispensaries serve patients unless they’re vertically integrated?
If equity is truly your goal, this is a strange way of showing it. Recreational dispensaries are everywhere. They’re already selling cannabis and could connect to the medical portal and serve patients. But you won’t let them add a medical register because they don’t grow their own plants?
This isn’t about business. It’s about the patients. Every dispensary in this state needs to be able to sell cannabis to patients tax-free. Every community where cannabis is sold needs to have access to the medical program.
And yet, entire cities—entire regions—have no medical dispensaries. Cambridge doesn’t have a single medical dispensary. Boston lost three of its seven medical dispensaries in 2024.
While recreational shops multiply. Twelve medical dispensaries closed in the past year.
Patients are worried if the next dispensary to shut down is the one they rely on. If forced to use a recreational dispensary, they’re being taxed on their medicine.
By refusing to fix this, it begs the question: Is the goal to help patients, or to profit off of them?
This is not regulation. This is neglect. The Cannabis Advisory Board (CAB) recommended in 2018 and 2023 that you eliminate the vertical integration requirement. Last year, at the listening session in Martha’s Vineyard, MPAA warned the Commission that failing to eliminate vertical integration would only buy time—not fix the problem
And now? Those 234 patients you were so worried about losing access? They are literally on an Island, with no access to medical marijuana at all.
This was preventable. Martha’s Vineyard was the warning. Don’t let it be the fate of our entire program.
You have the power to fix this. Do not wait another year, another month, another day. There is no more time left. Listen to the patients here today.
End the vertical integration requirement. Give us a medical program that works.
Not tomorrow. Not soon. Now.
