The long awaited amendments to the medical marijuana regulations are finally final. The draft amendments to 105 CMR 725.000, Implementation of an Act for the Humanitarian Medical Use of Marijuana, were made available for comment more than a year ago. The amendments accomplish much, such as allowing certified nurse practitioners to certify qualifying patients, certifying institutional caregivers without individual employee certification, streamlining and bifurcating the application/registration process for RMDs, enhancing operational requirements for RMDs, and more.

The final regulations are expected to be published this week. What we will be watching closely are the revisions that were made between the draft regulations and final version enacted last week by the Department of Public Health's Public Health Council. These include:

  • Changes to the draft definition of "caregiving institution;"
  • Changes to circumstances in which results of contamination are reported to the DPH by the RMD and Independent Testing Laboratory;
  • Universal striking of references to the "non-profit" requirements for RMDs in light of the language of Chapter 55 of the Acts of 2017, which we have blogged about here and here;
  • Changes to the methodology for measuring an RMD's annual inventory and an increase in the percentage of inventory an RMD may procure from another RMD; and
  • Minor changes to operational controls required for RMDs.

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