MetroWest Towns Seek Control Over Marijuana Centers
Since medical marijuana became the law of the land in Massachusetts last fall, many cities and towns that perceive legal or public safety problems arising have scrambled to exert local control over where the 35 treatment centers authorized by voters will open.
Attorney General Martha Coakley ruled in March that medical marijuana dispensaries cannot be banned outright in any town – something officials in the town of Wakefield were pursuing before Coakley's ruling.
But some MetroWest communities are finding a way to discourage the centers within their borders through strict zoning regulations and moratoriums.
"I think (towns) all want to provide a place for these things, but they want to find out what the pros and cons are, what other towns are doing," said Bruce Leish, director of the MetroWest Regional Collaborative (MWRC), a quasi-public regional planning agency.
Leish is working with administrators and elected officials from a number of area towns to dissect draft regulations governing medical marijuana dispensaries, which were issued by the state Department of Public Health (DPH) on March 29.
Buying Time
In the meantime, towns like Medway and Natick have pursued moratoriums so that no dispensaries will be able to open doors within their borders for at least another year.
Natick voters will decide on a moratorium that would run through the calendar year at its spring Town Meeting on April 23. Paul R. Joseph, chairman of the Natick Board of Selectmen, said a majority of Natick voters approved medical marijuana in November, but location is important.
"We want to be very clear about where we zone, should a marijuana dispensary come," Joseph said.
Joseph believes medical marijuana dispensaries could create a policing problem, and that area youth may be at risk if medical marijuana prescriptions become more available in the area.
Selectmen not officially supported a particular area of Natick for such a use, but Joseph thinks it would make sense to site a medical marijuana dispensary on or near MetroWest Medical Center's Leonard Morse campus, which is on Union Street, approaching South Natick.
"In my opinion, because it's a medical dispensary, I would love to put it in that zone," said Joseph.
In Medway, a moratorium through June 2014 will be put to a vote at Town Meeting in May. Susan Affleck-Childs, planning and economic development coordinator, said the move will buy town officials time to review the DPH regulations and zone accordingly.
"The thinking is really to secure some time to think this through in a thoughtful, analytical fashion," Affleck-Childs said.
'Just Paying Attention'
Although the DPH regulations won't be finalized until the end of May, some towns seem to be ahead of the crowd when it comes to zoning for medical marijuana dispensaries. The town of Westborough, for instance, has already passed a bylaw limiting dispensaries to its adult entertainment district.
Town Planner Jim Robbins said Westborough officials were "just paying attention," and were able to act quickly to zone dispensaries in a way that would protect the downtown and historic districts from the use.
Westborough's approach has been reasonable, according to Robbins.
"(Officials) want to provide compassion for people in need of pain relief…while providing a safeguard for children," he said.
Measuring The Impact
Though moratoriums are temporary, they are likely to have a lasting impact, according to Robert Carp, a Newton-based attorney who helped found the Massachusetts Medical Marijuana Dispensers Association, which represents dispensary companies in 12 states.
Carp said those towns that have already passed moratoriums are effectively shutting out the first round of the state's 35 approved dispensary licensees from opening within their limits, because moratoriums will outlast time tables proposed by the DPH for opening once a license is issued.
Beyond that, the effects of a small suburb passing a moratorium are somewhat limited, Carp said, because the political ramifications are small.
"If Boston passed a moratorium, it would be damaging. Some of the smaller towns? Probably not so," Carp said.
Carp also noted that efforts to minimize medical marijuana's presence in a town are certainly not unexpected. Local governments within states that legalized medical marijuana before Massachusetts reacted the same way, he said. And it's no wonder.
"It's something brand new. It's something people, up until very recently, associated with criminal activity," Carp said. "The taboos are slowly eroding but they're still there."
Employer Concerns
While some local governments feel they have their hands full with the changes in state law, some employers are just as concerned about what legal medical marijuana will mean for their hiring and personnel policies, said Terrence McCourt, a managing partner at Greenberg Traurig in Boston.
For example, he asked, will employers have to allow employees with medical marijuana cards to consume the drug while at work?
McCourt doesn't think so. Unlike in some other states that have passed medical marijuana laws, Massachusetts' ballot question language contains a provision that says the law will not require any accommodation of the use of medical marijuana in the workplace, school bus or ground, youth centers or correctional facilities.
Perhaps a more complicated question, McCourt said, is how employers will handle drug screening policies for applicants or current workers. On that point, he also believes the law favors employers' rights, based on past lawsuits in California and other states.
"If the person fails the drug test, due to the presence of marijuana, my view at this point is the employer would still be able to decline that applicant even if the applicant has a registry card," he said.
But McCourt said he fully expects legal challenges to arise. It's only a matter of time before a marijuana patient is denied a job for failing a screening and decides to sue.
"I would fully expect in the future for that issue to be litigated in Massachusetts," he said. n
Matt Pilon contributed to this report.
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