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Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
The Department of Public Health has approved four additional applications to open registered medical marijuana dispensaries, bringing the total with provisional authorization to 15.
The four sites are in Boston, Fairhaven, Greenfield and Taunton. Each city or town is in a county that did not yet have an approved medical marijuana dispensary applicant.
The applicants were subject to individual and corporate background checks, a review of funding, investment sources, business and operational plans, and verification of local outreach and other information provided in the application.
Four counties – Berkshire, Dukes, Nantucket and Worcester – did not have any successful applicants.
Each of the 15 provisionally approved applicants must pass a final DPH review process. The review process includes site inspections and verification that the dispensary is in compliance with all local ordinances, bylaws and regulations.
The DPH also recently launched the MMJ Online Registration System, which is being used by physicians to certify patients and by patients to complete registration. The dispensaries will be required to access the system to confirm that patients are certified, and law enforcement will have access to verify that an individual can legally purchase and possess marijuana for medical use.
The state’s medical marijuana law, approved by voters in 2012, authorizes the licensing of up to 35 dispensaries in the first year of the program’s operation, with at least one, but no more than five, in each county. Additional dispensaries could be licensed by the DPH in subsequent years, based on the needs of the state’s population.
Up to 2 percent of the population is expected to participate in the program, based on the experience of other states that have implemented medical marijuana programs.
The first of the provisionally approved applicants is expected to receive final approval from the DPH to open by the end of this year, but federal legal challenges may emerge. The Boston Globe has reported that U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz is considering taking legal action to prohibit any medical marijuana dispensary from opening within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare or public housing development, which would affect several of the provisionally licensed dispensaries. State law in Massachusetts requires only that, in the absence of local zoning, dispensaries may not operate within 500 feet of a school or place where children congregate.
This legal issue highlights the tension between federal and state government around the medical use of marijuana. Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug within the federal classification system, meaning it has no medical usage and is at high risk for abuse. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice indicated it would not prioritize enforcement relative to medical marijuana practices that were legal under state law.