MA Advocates Outraged Over Further Marijuana Dispensary Delays

Monday, August 18, 2014

Nicholas Handy, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

After a variety of delays to medical marijuana dispensaries in the state of Massachusetts, medical marijuana advocates are outraged and concerned about the most recent news coming from the statehouse.

Two more of the eleven currently approved licenses are on hold and may be getting shutdown by the state after it was found that the company’s CEO may have lied on his application about having a college degree.

“When the state released a list of 11 dispensaries we were immediately concerned because it comes short of the amount that we need for safe and easy patient access,” said Matthew Allen, Executive Director of Massachusetts Patients Advocacy Alliance. “Now that there are additional licenses that are on hold and potentially denied, we are becoming very concerned. We want to reiterate that this is a process that needs to be all about the patients.”

Currently, the closest location that is on track to receive a license for Central Massachusetts residents is Milford. The state will not grant another license in Worcester County until each county in the Commonwealth has one approved an officially licensed dispensary, meaning that Worcester or a more centralized medical marijuana dispensary won’t be opened until 2015 at the earliest.

A Safe Process

No licenses have been officially granted in the state of Massachusetts as of yet; Department of Public Health officials are still currently reviewing licenses and doing background checks on the prospective companies.

While this is a process that has already been completed before, state officials claim that additional checks are required because of changing staff members. The point of these continual and stringent checks is to ensure that patients will be provided with the safest facilities possible.

“Our goal is ensuring that patients have access to the highest quality dispensaries,” said Alec Loftus of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. “As the Governor has said, if someone lied on their application they will not get a license. New England Treatment Access’s application is on hold until they are able to suitably address this issue.”

Concerns of Delays

The ultimate concern with this long-delayed process is that patients who have a need are not being properly served. Many medical marijuana advocates believe that the 11 announced dispensaries were not enough to adequately cover the state; removing two more certainly won’t help that cause.

While delays are keeping dispensaries from opening, Allen also takes issues with other initiatives not advancing quickly. According to Allen, patients are still being limited because of care providers being limited in how many patients they can have.

“We have been urging the DPH to move forward with this process for four months now,” said Allen. “We shouldn’t have to reopen the vetting process. We once had 181 applicants and now we are down to nine. The process has been rigorous, but this rigor has caused a wealth of delays; we need to stop focusing on the process and need to focus on the needs of the patients.”