With the Island’s supply of legal marijuana dwindling, state regulators broke more than a decade of precedent to allow dispensaries on the Vineyard to ship in mainland cannabis products.
The Cannabis Control Commission Thursday approved an emergency action that, for the first time, authorizes the transportation of marijuana across state territorial waters to the Vineyard and Nantucket.
The new regulations were partially prompted by a lawsuit from Vineyard dispensary owner Geoff Rose, who closed his Island Time shop in Vineyard Haven last month after the Island’s lone commercial marijuana growing facility announced it was shutting down.
On Friday morning Mr. Rose was ecstatic about the commission’s decision and said he was in the process of reopening his dispensary, bolstering the Vineyard’s access to cannabis.
“Obviously, yesterday was a great day,” he said. “It’s providing equity for all operators on the Island to transport to and from the mainland.”
The state has long maintained that any marijuana products sold on the Islands had to be grown there due to the federal prohibition on transporting cannabis through federal waters and airspace.
In his suit, Mr. Rose challenged the commission’s ban, saying dispensaries should be able to transport marijuana to the Vineyard because the
