From Cannabis Control Commission drama to lab shopping, enforcement actions, and getting weed to Martha’s Vineyard
This roundup is not to be confused with the list of our most-read articles of 2024. There is certainly some crossover, but those are the specific features that lured the most eyes to our site, whereas these are the issues that dominated the industry. We covered all of them extensively; in some cases, like with hemp and lab testing, we published several dozen stories throughout the year. Below, we did the impossible and boiled down said topics, many of which are extremely complicated, to dense summaries with lots of links for those who want to dig in further …
The short life of hemp-derived drinks on Massachusetts shelves
Though it may seem like a hundred years ago when Massachusetts liquor stores were carrying hemp-infused beverages and making a killing on it, the significant boom and following fizzle of these products sucked most of the oxygen out of the room even during a time of substantial upheaval at the Cannabis Control Commission and other big happenings. A stern warning from state alcohol regulators in May put the kibosh on that party around here, but the story lives on in several dimensions—from Bay State consumers ordering hemp-derived products online, to commonwealth businesses getting in on the action in any number of ways. Meanwhile, the hemp wars continue on the surface in several states across the country, with the federal front promising plenty of fireworks in 2025.
The saga of Shannon O’Brien
From monthslong spans of sensational news about Shannon O’Brien surfacing every week, to sporadic but revealing blips about her neverending legal motions, the story of the fired CCC chair is a bureaucratic tennis match of back-and-forth flapdoodle, a bewildering embarrassment no matter where you stand on things and certainly a top Mass weed story of 2024. Considering how it started last year with O’Brien first being suspended in September 2023, and how her legal team is still fighting the decision of state Treasurer Deb Goldberg, this will probably be the rare story to appear on this list three years in a row.
State lawmakers and inspector general target the Cannabis Control Commission
Former Chair O’Brien was just one of many troubles haunting CCC machinery in 2024. Due to a number of issues spanning human relations debacles to the discovery of hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncollected fees, the agency was the subject of a whole lot of scrutiny from press as well as state legislators and other officials this year. At one point, Mass Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro launched a public campaign calling for the agency to be put into receivership, in the process releasing a laundry list of “symptoms” ranging from human resources debacles to data insecurity. State lawmakers did not move to appoint a receiver in their last session, but have since started a legislative review that will continue to call for CCC accountability from Beacon Hill in the new year.
Chapter 180 compliance and Host Community Agreement changes
This may be some of the most boring Bay State cannabis news of 2024, but it’s also some of the most important—whether you’re a direct industry stakeholder, or someone who lives in a Mass city or town. So in other words, everyone, since part of the CCC painstakingly rewriting the law to comply with changes made under former Gov. Charlie Baker includes adjustments to how much municipalities can collect from cannabis companies in their borders. Up until the new regulations were promulgated in October 2023, town board members, councilors, and selectmen in short-sleeve dress shirts and hideous ties got to basically hold owners over a barrel and ask for an arbitrary payout (on top of the taxes they already collect). In 2024, regulators put an end to that, while their staffers are still sorting through the wreckage. Across the state, some companies have been reimbursed by their hosts, while in other places lawsuits between operators and their muni overlords continue.
Lab shopping, fraud, and efforts to correct the course
Where do we even begin with this one? Also dubbed the most important story of 2023, the issue of laboratory shopping and testing fraud blew up even further this year—to the point where the CCC actually responded, but not yet in a way to satisfy its critics. As things stand now, the commission is moving in the direction of limiting the extent to which cultivators and manufacturers can manipulate the results of tests for potency and contaminants, but appears to be stopping short of putting all the stopgaps people have requested in place. There may come a day when cheating labs and operators are scared straight in Massachusetts, but there’s still enough wiggle room for concern.
The CCC’s search for a new executive director
Former CCC Executive Director Shawn Collins announced his resignation from the agency in November 2023. Chief People Officer Debra Hilton-Creek has technically served as acting ED since, though commissioners clashed in June 2024 as some members moved to redelegate her director duties to various department heads. In the meantime, commissioners and their supporting staffers embarked on a monthslong nationwide search for a new leader, only to select David Lakeman, who started his career in cannabis regulation at the CCC in 2018 and then went on to the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Lakeman refused the offer though, leading to the somewhat contested decision to reengage Holliston Town Administrator Travis Ahern, who officially accepted the position this week.
Enforcement actions
In May, the CCC published Final Order and Stipulated Agreement documents pertaining to three licensees, with each one carrying a hefty fine, with some of the initiating complaints dating as far back as 2021. As the commission laid out in an agreement with Holistic Industries, that situation stemmed from reports of “potential mold contamination” at the company’s “Monson facility, including complaints from employees that potentially contaminated product was ‘pushed through anyway.’” Another agreement, with the Barre-based High Hawk Farm, noted inspections back in 2021 that revealed “seedlings were located in the same building as other vegetating Marijuana plants,” among other problems. While a third agreement, with the Boston-based Olde World Remedies, came from a scenario in 2021 in which a missing preroll was not properly reported to the agency.
In June, the CCC fined Trulieve $350,000 for noncompliance associated with the 2022 death of Lorna McMurrey at that company’s former Holyoke cultivation (the agency followed up again in November by issuing a bulletin on ground cannabis dust and workplace safety). Four months later, commissioners announced enforcement actions against two other national businesses that operate in the Bay State—Ascend Wellness, and Curaleaf. The former’s problems stemmed from “substantial” inventory and product-tracking issues, while in the case of Curaleaf, investigators found that the company “failed to utilize best practices to limit contamination of Marijuana … and exhibited negligence in its cultivation operations at its Amesbury and Webster Facilities.”
Weed droughts on Martha’s Vineyard
It should be noted that while this was definitely one of the most covered Mass cannabis stories of 2024, with headlines in countless local and national outlets due to it happening in a place where celebrities summer, it was also small potatoes next to everything else on this list, since very few people were actually affected. In short, Vineyard residents and visitors were facing the possibility of losing the lone island supplier, so CCC members, facing a lawsuit over the quagmire, tweaked the rules to allow for products to be transported there from the mainland. And everyone lived happily ever after, stoned.
Removal of the “two-driver rule”
This one is mostly inside baseball, largely related to business matters, but of course it will also impact consumers and the market, since delivery companies no longer have to waste money putting two employees on the road together, making for more access (since companies have a better chance of surviving now) and potentially lower retail prices. Following years of impassioned pleas from Social Equity delivery operators and their advocates, the commission actually voted all the way back in December 2023 to remove the costly requirement, but it basically took all of 2024 to get it done once and for all.
The introduction of draft social consumption regulations
This one snuck in right before the deadline. Until earlier this month, chatter about cannabis social consumption in Massachusetts had mostly been regressive. But in early December, the CCC finally unveiled a framework for Social Consumption Establishments [SCEs]. And last week, the agency released draft regulations for three distinct on-site social consumption license classes: Supplemental, Hospitality, and Event Organizer. If things go according to plan, one of the biggest stories of next year will hopefully be the opening of the first SCE businesses, but this is still the Bay State after all, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.
