Nearly a half-hour after last Thursday’s Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission’s week was supposed to begin, it was cancelled.
“I regret to inform you that today’s scheduled MMCC Full Commission meeting has been cancelled,” wrote Lori Dodson, Deputy Director of the MMCC over email. “The platform is experiencing technical issues and the meeting will need to be rescheduled.”
Most notably, this meeting was set to include committee reports from the Policy Committee which would focus on concerns about diversity. Racial equity has been a major problem for the MMCC—the subject of debates, hearings and workgroups regarding Black-owned cannabis businesses in particular. At the last Policy Committee meeting, public comment was taken on diversity issues.
Some in the cannabis industry have complained to The Outlaw Report that the MMCC has yet to issue the licenses it has to give out soon—licenses, mind you, that exist to counter the lack of diversity in the industry. That technical issues could bring down such an important meeting was frustrating to many. When it comes to concerns about racial equity, perhaps the MMCC’s meeting getting cancelled was beneficial for hearing from more people about the issue. At the same time that last week’s MMCC meeting was scheduled, the House Workgroup to Address Police Reform and Accountability was holding a hearing and likely, interests in both meetings intersected.
Last week’s August 27th meeting has since been rescheduled for Thursday, September 3. The agenda from last week’s cancelled meeting can be viewed here.