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No, you’re not imagining this.
It actually does seem like deja vu all over again.
Nearly a decade after Massachusetts voters legalized the recreational use of marijuana – and with it the ability to license social-consumption sites — those so-called pot cafés have yet to be realized.
The idea of social consumption goes back to the original voter-approved law passed in 2016. Efforts to see the plan put in place stalled as regulators worked to get other parts of the law, like those regulating medical and adult recreational sales locations, up and running.
And in October 2018, CCC regulators predicted that a time when marijuana users would be able to congregate at an establishment and socially consume pot remained years away.
They weren’t just blowing smoke. Nearly seven years from the date of that statement, that eventuality remains a pipe dream.
In the latest installment of the “gang that can’t pull the authorization trigger,” the Cannabis Control Commission just spent three days discussing draft rules for the public consumption of marijuana, which apparently will lead to further debate.
Commissioner Nurys Camargo said she’s heard critics — both inside and outside of the agency — speak about the commission’s slow rollout of their social consumption policies.
What’s more important, she said, is getting the regulations right, not expeditiously approving them.
“This is why it’s taking so long; we want to do it right. We’ve had public safety and public health at the forefront,” Camargo said.
This body, no matter its makeup or leadership, could never be accused of pushing the pot-café approval envelope.
We understand that at the outset of this law’s enactment, regulators opted to table pot cafés while they studied how other states and cities handled the process.
The intervening years have provided more than enough time to conduct extensive research into all the factors required to proceed with licensing social-consumption sites in Massachusetts.
Nonetheless, the CCC seems no closer to reaching the finish line.
Back in December, that panel predicted adults would be able to patronize Amsterdam-style pot cafes and sample marijuana at the point of purchase sometime in the near future, but only after the completion of a time-consuming process of finalizing rules for licensing such establishments.
Commissioners announced they had arrived at a regulatory framework for how a “Social Consumption Site” can open and operate in Massachusetts, more than two years after an update to the state’s marijuana laws indicated municipalities could indeed opt into allowing public use of the product.
In announcing the draft regulations and a timeline for making them official, acting Chair Bruce Stebbins warned at the time that both the rules and the concept remained in the formative stage.
“This framework and the accompanying regulations represent our exhaustive and thoughtful work. It is in no way intended to have every answer to every question,” he said.
Offering draft regulations, the acting chair said, fosters conversation with industry stakeholders and community members who have thoughts or concerns. Stebbins said the commission is “anxious” for both the public and business interests to weigh in as the process moves forward.
So much for opening pot cafés in the near future.
Back in the present, commissioners spend Thursday, Friday and Monday trying to determine where adults 21 and older will be allowed to consume marijuana in a public setting and who would be allowed to serve them, considerations that included clarifying a dizzying amount of definitions for terms such as “Social Consumption Establishment.”
When this program finally gets the green light to proceed, Massachusetts will join more than a dozen other U.S. states in allowing adults to imbibe cannabis where they buy it, similar to alcohol at a bar.
Of course, by the time that happens, several more states likely will have been added to the list.
That’s because vetting each sentence of the approximately 200-page draft regulations may take more than a few more meetings — a delay Chair Camargo is willing to endure if it leads to a successfully implemented plan.
“If we have to have five or six more of these meetings, we’re going to have them, because this is the first step toward the larger conversation,” she said.
The commission has scheduled a pair of further meetings, on April 16 and 18, to continue with their discussion of the draft social consumption regulations.
According to their timeline, commissioners back in December expected to file the final edited regulations with the Secretary of State’s office sometime “about three months from initial filing” with a goal of mid-2025.
But the process doesn’t end there.
Matt Giancola, the commission’s director of government affairs and policy, previously said in December that filing the regulations doesn’t mean pot establishments will soon follow.
“Once the regulations are available, that doesn’t mean a social consumption establishment is going to open the very next day.”
The exact timeline from the announcement of a regulatory framework to the first shop opening, Giancola said, will be “dictated by the state process, the municipal process, and licensees’ business decisions.”
In other words, maybe sometime in 2026 — or 2027.
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