Legal Settlement Allows for 1st Maritime Transport of State-Legal Cannabis in Massachusetts

In a historic first, licensed cannabis businesses in Massachusetts are now able to ship cannabis over intrastate waterways, reversing a Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) policy that banned transport between mainland Massachusetts and its islands. Until now, island-based dispensaries were forced to produce their own inventory or buy it from cultivators on the island. The reversal came as part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed May 21 against the CCC in the Suffolk County Superior Court by Vicente LLP on behalf of dispensaries located on the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket—Patient Centric of Martha’s Vineyard Ltd., d/b/a Island Time, and The Green Lady Dispensary Inc.

The suit was filed as dispensaries on Martha’s Vineyard were on the brink of running out of product to sell. “Wholesale cannabis shortages threatened Island Time’s survival as well as Martha’s Vineyard’s legal cannabis market at large,” according to a press release issued June 24 by Vicente.

Island Time, in fact, shut down in June, as the island’s only cannabis grower, Fine Fettle, “stopped production and plans to close its shop by September,” Mass Live reported.

“Nine days after Vicente LLP filed suit, the CCC voted to enter settlement negotiations with Vicente’s clients to allow shipment of marijuana over intrastate waterways,” according to the release.

As a result of the settlement, the CCC issued an administrative order allowing licensed cannabis businesses to transport adult-use and medical cannabis products over state territorial waters. The order stated the policy change was “in response to the growing risk to patient and adult access to safe and legal medical and adult-use cannabis and cannabis products in the counties of Dukes and Nantucket posed by a lack of access to cannabis and cannabis products from on-island licensees.”

“The first-of-its-kind decision will reinvigorate the marijuana industries on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, opening the door to more jobs and a wider tax base for the hospitality-driven islands,” Adam Fine, managing partner of Vicente LLP’s Boston office and co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said in the press release. “Most importantly, our client Island Time will be able to reopen its doors with a consistent supply of cannabis products and provide its customers with access to safe and tested adult-use products as well as the medicines that patients rely upon. This settlement ensures that Martha’s Vineyard’s legal cannabis market will remain available to island residents and summer visitors alike.”

“The legal issue in this case highlights the longstanding conflict between state and federal regulations regarding cannabis transportation,” Vicente LLP Partner and co-counsel for the plaintiffs Tim Swain said in the statement. “Cannabis companies operate in highly complex business environments and this case validates a critical right to receive wholesale supply sufficient to operate a legal business.”

“The outcome of this lawsuit will set a new standard for how cannabis transportation rules are interpreted and enforced and provide precedent for other businesses in similar situations,” Swain said.

The first inter-island cannabis transfer in Hawaii took place in the fall of 2023, after a new state law took effect allowing wholesale cannabis transfers between islands, despite federal regulations that prohibit it.   

The first air shipment of state-legal cannabis took place in 2017 in Alaska, where more than 70 percent of the state is not connected by road. 

“What happened in Alaska happened out of necessity,” Leif Abel, co-founder of Greatland Ganja, the first company to utilize commercial airline transportation, told Cannabis Business Times at the time. “These folks had no other way to get cannabis to their retailers—these island communities or coastal communities with zero road access. The Alaska ferry system has banned the transport along its waterways because of the U.S. Coast Guard, and so this was basically the last resort and the only way these folks [could get] product.”