On June 6th the Joint Committee on Healthcare Financing in Massachusetts passed bill H.4546 favorably onto the House Ways and Means Committee. The bill is titled, “An act relative to vertical integration of medical marijuana businesses” and would give the Cannabis Control Commission explicit authority to end the vertical integration requirement. Current policy requires each medical marijuana company to cultivate, manufacture, and retail their own cannabis products without exception. Advocates say that this requirement is expensive, it restricts the medical marijuana industry, and leaves patients in certain areas of Massachusetts without access to medical marijuana.
The Joint Committee on Healthcare Financing attached a fiscal note to the bill estimating that implementation would cost more than $100,000. A Senate version of the bill, S.2663, arrived to the Senate Ways and Means Committee in February.
Find more information on this bill from the Massachusetts Legislature here: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/192/H4546
