BOSTON (AP) – Massachusetts has a cannabis conundrum.
State law requires every county to have a dispensary for medical marijuana, but federal regulations forbid the drug from being transported across U.S. waters. That leaves the tourist havens of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket potless unless someone gets a license to grow it legally on the islands.
Despite their small size, both islands are their own counties. State officials suggest the federal restrictions could add to the challenge of opening medical marijuana outlets on both, or either, of the islands in the near future and may preclude the possibility of the islands sharing a dispensary.
One approach to establishing dispensaries on the islands would be to license an operator to cultivate and sell pot at the same location, perfectly legal under the state law. Geoff Rose, a transplanted New Yorker who has lived on the Vineyard for 14 years, applied to the state health department for a license to do just that.
The federal waters obstacle, he said, is “an impediment to those who thought they could cultivate off-island and transport here, but I don’t see it as an impediment at all.”