Editorial: Worcester's state agency needs to change
When the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission decided to establish its headquarters in Worcester’s Union Station, it was quite the win for the city and Central Massachusetts. So much of the state’s regulatory and political power is centralized around Greater Boston, so getting the main offices of the agency in charge of a buzzy new industry provided some much-deserved clout to this region. And it turns out Central Massachusetts has become the epicenter of the state’s legal marijuana industry, as Worcester County has more business license applicants than any other county.
This all makes the flailing of the CCC that much more disappointing. Central Massachusetts finally got a major state agency here, and the net result of its continued dysfunction is it’s harming the very businesses it was designed to oversee and help grow.
The CCC has gone through growing pains from the beginning, although those early struggles could be more easily forgiven. Recreational marijuana had not been legalized anywhere east of the Mississippi River when Massachusetts voters passed the 2016 ballot initiative, and after the CCC was established by the legislature in 2017, then Chairman Steven Hoffman would often ask for understanding of the agency’s challenges, saying regulators were building the plane as they were flying it.
Still, the problems have gotten significantly worse. CCC moves at a snail’s pace in granting businesses licenses, which particularly hurts small businesses and entrepreneurs who invested significant capital, often raising money from family and friends in order to get their ventures off the ground. In addition, the early licenses didn’t go to people from underserved populations, which was one of the original tenets of the 2016 ballot initiative. The testing system is flawed, as it can be easily manipulated, leading to potentially unsafe products hitting the retail shelves. As competition in the industry ramped up and businesses started closing, CCC was slow to ease onerous regulations, such as the two-driver rule for deliveries.
Now, an investigation by WBJ reporters Eric Casey and Dan Adams reveals the toxic culture and dysfunction at the agency is nearing critical levels. Their “Failed oversight” story shows an agency where staff has lost complete confidence in leadership, employees have divided into factions and are lobbing HR complaints at each other, missed deadlines are the norm, and business needs have fallen by the wayside. Some of this stems from the now seven-year-old dispute over whether the CCC executive director or the commissioners are the true power in the agency, which is a situation that feels painfully obvious to everyone outside the CCC. Structural changes are needed now.
What could have been a shining star state agency in the Heart of the Commonwealth has turned into a headache in need of pain relief. Even with commissioners picking a new executive director on Oct. 28, the problems at CCC are more widespread than any one person can fix. State legislators need to step back in and rebuild the CCC from the ground up, keeping in mind the $1.7-billion legal marijuana industry deserves a highly functioning regulatory partner.
This editorial is the opinion of the WBJ Editorial Board.
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