Stung by an exodus of members since it filed suit to block new cannabis industry rules permitting home delivery, the business group that represents most of the state’s brick-and-mortar marijuana shops announced Monday morning that it is dropping the legal challenge.
The Commonwealth Dispensary Association and its attorneys from Foley Hoag had argued in the suit that new delivery-only license types created by the Cannabis Control Commission violated the state’s marijuana law, which they said gives the retailers the right to deliver cannabis under their existing licenses.
The lawsuit was seen by some as an attack on the disadvantaged entrepreneurs and small businesses that the CCC’s new delivery model was intended to help and a number of retailers publicly broke from the CDA as news of the suit spread. The suit targeted delivery-only licenses with the ability to buy marijuana wholesale which will be available exclusively to participants in the CCC’s social equity program and economic empowerment applicants for the first three years.
