That’s the case with several suggested changes to the state’s medical marijuana regulations, including getting rid of the $50 annual registration fee charged to patients, allowing patients to go straight from the doctor to the dispensary and buy medicine without waiting for the state to send them an official card.
Both policies enjoy the support of patients and dispensaries — and the Massachusetts marijuana law passed in 2017 says that patients should receive a “temporary registration” document to use at dispensaries as soon as their physicians recommend they use marijuana and submit the necessary paperwork to the state.
Despite that, members of the Cannabis Control Commission indicated at their meeting Thursday they will wait until 2019 before implementing those tweaks and other changes to the medical program sought by patients.
The commission is required by law to take over the regulation of the medical marijuana program from the Department of Public Health (DPH) before the end of the year. With most of its attention focused on the rollout of recreational sales, however, the agency is essentially copying and pasting the existing regulations while replacing references to DPH with references to the commission.
Technically, the commission fulfilled its obligation to allow public comments on these “new” rules by holding a couple of hearings and soliciting written comments. But it’s now clear most of the agency’s top officials don’t intend to act on that feedback anytime soon.
They argued that any substantial tweaks could make the commission miss its deadline for absorbing the program, and that a comprehensive package of changes should be made carefully and thoughtfully next year after the DPH medical marijuana program staff joins the commission.
“I believe that there are some significant, substantive changes that need to be made to these regulations,” Commissioner Britte McBride said Thursday. But, she added, “I believe that we also need to have regulations in place in order to assume the program from DPH, and that the time just does not work to do both of those things.”
Commission chairman Steve Hoffman and other commissioners agreed, with Hoffman saying he was “totally committed” to the medical program and hoped to make the revisions in “early 2019.” He also noted that eliminating patient fees now could screw up the budget for the medical program, telling reporters that “money doesn’t grow on trees” and that the commission would like to avoid asking lawmakers for extra money before the next budget cycle.
“Putting something into a regulation right now and then hoping that we subsequently can get an appropriation to cover it — I just don’t think that’s an effective way to do things,” Hoffman said.
A more firm timeline for enacting the tweaks should be presented at the commission’s next meeting in late November. But that’s thin gruel for patient advocates, who said they’ve been pressing the commission on these “basic” issues for months and argue there’s no reason the agency couldn’t have made at least a few noncontroversial changes now, while setting aside more contentious proposed policies for next year.
The Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance (MPAA) said it was “extremely disappointed to hear that the Commission has decided not to immediately implement changes to the patient registration system mandated by law, or any changes suggested by the dozens of patients who sent in public comment.” The group also argues the $50 patient fees were never legal to begin with.
“They could have been more prepared for the revisions this week if they had started talking to us about the medical program earlier in the year like we requested,” MPAA executive director Nichole Snow said. “When I think of taking something seriously, that means knowing about it ahead of time instead of driving it while it’s being built. Pushing us off until the very end is not what I expected.”
Commissioner Shaleen Title on Thursday proposed making the fee and registration changes now, but found no support among her colleagues.
Title acknowledged the commission has “limited bandwidth,” that absorbing the medical program is a “monumental task,” and that some changes would be better made next year with the help of former DPH staffers. But, she said, “it’s up to us to synthesize the public comments into an action plan to address the most urgent issues for patients.”
“From my perspective, the priorities are to immediately waive patient fees, implement electronic patient registration, and increase the patient-per-caregiver limit,” Title told me. “I’m disappointed that we didn’t act on those items, and I’ll keep bringing them up until we do.”
Dan Adams can be reached at daniel.adams@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Adams86.