Maryland's Weed Legalization Regulations Are Entirely Authoritarian

Maryland's new marijuana regulations are entirely authoritarian and corporatist, and couldn't get much worse.

At the end of last month, the Maryland Cannabis Administration emailed out to all medical marijuana patients their newly developed regulations that will (poorly) govern the state's adult-use cannabis program. The regulations are absolutely absurd.

It starts with the semi-reasonable mandate that cannabis will only be purchasable by adults 21 or older. The rest of the regulations then break down into completely arbitrary nonsense.

Amongst some of the absurd regulations, one of the most absurd is "creating a single supply chain for all products grown or produced in the state." Why?! Why do Marylander's only need one supply chain? And why is the state mandating such a thing? What company will be awarded the license to operate such a supply chain? And how much will this company charge its clients? Why isn't competition allowed in the cannabis supply chain market? And shouldn't the marketplace be determining how many supply chains are required to efficiently transport cannabis products across the state of Maryland? How did the Maryland government even determine that one single supply chain will be able to adequately execute such a task? This regulation is only in the first couple lines of the newly-developed regulations and it absolutely reeks of corruption.

There's also a stipulation in their email that claims they will be "establishing" the application and licensing process for new cannabis businesses, but don't mention how, when, or even what the process will look like. It also doesn't stipulate what the requirements, criteria, or prerequisites will be to even apply for such a license, but in many states, it often requires a great deal of on-hand capital (and often millions of dollars) to even begin the licensing process. Gee, it's not like these sorts of regulations won't ensure the limited number of licenses Maryland will give out will end up in the hands of a bunch of already-wealthy established businessmen and elites.

Some other idiotic regulations on their "list" include "reserving patient hours for medical-only dispensing." But why do Marylanders need that? Do medical marijuana patients have more of a right to cannabis than anyone else? And what if there are no medical patients that happen to come in during those hours one day? Is a dispensary just supposed to lock any other customers out of the store during that time and be forced into a net loss of profit for their store during that portion of the day? It's a ridiculous, idiotic rule that doesn't make sense.

And then we come to the single stupidest provisions in the entire email, which deal with something called "social equity." This is especially interesting, because there's nothing equitable (or even fair) about the existing licensing process to open a medical cannabis dispensary in Maryland, but the state government has decided to ignore the social (and economic) inequality this licensing process creates, and go straight to virtue-signaling, which does nothing but give the Maryland's Democratic Party some political virtue points.

One of the first idiotic provisions of this clause includes "implementing the Social Equity Partnership Grant Program." What does that mean exactly? Does this mean you're just going to give money to certain demographics of people to open cannabis businesses, while leaving other demographics out to dry? And how will the government determine who gets the grant? What if these "grants" end up going to, once again, already-wealthy established businessmen instead of a young entrepreneur who actually might require extra capital in order to start a business? How could that possibly be equitable?!!

But that's not all. There's also a provision that claims the government will "establish[] reduced licensing and renewal fees for social equity businesses." What?! What is a "social equity business"?!? What's the legal definition of that?!? How does the Maryland government determine what is and what isn't a "social equity business"?!? Is this entirely determined by the color of an entrepreneur's skin?!?? Is that even legal?!??! This is perhaps the most ethically-questionable of all their new "regulations."

And finally, we have another one of the single-most absurd provisions on their list, which reads: "requiring existing businesses to distribute to, or reserve distribution space for social equity businesses."

This is completely absurd and idiotic for a multitude of reasons. First, and most obviously, it reads as though the state will literally mandate existing businesses distribute to "social equity businesses," but under what circumstances? What if a "social equity business" won't agree to the costs and terms associated with such distribution services? Do these distributors have to distribute to them anyway? What happens if such a business would suffer an economic loss to distribute to such a business? And what does "reserve distribution space" mean? Does that mean a cannabis dispensary has to buy products from a "socially equitable" distributor?!?? What if they products are of poor quality?!? What if they don't sell?!?? Does a dispensary have to continue to buy these products from a "socially equitable" distributor even if its customers don't like the product and refuse to purchase it?!? There aren't even any guidelines that stipulate this.

And if all this wasn't ridiculous enough, we still have yet to discuss the most-angering of regulation yet: their regulations on home-growing. Despite Maryland distributors being able to grow hundreds of thousands of marijuana plants in a single operation, the thugs working for the state of Maryland are only allowing Marylanders to grow two plants in their homes. JUST TWO. And we've been unable to find any guidelines beyond this. What if one of these plants happens to be a male plant?!! What if both of them happen to be male plants?!?! There's nothing we can find in the regulations that stipulate Marylanders can have more than two plants until they find out exactly what sexes their plants are. So, according to the state, you can spend a bunch of your time nurturing a grand total of two plants to grow in your home, but if neither of them are actually able to produce flower... TOO BAD!! Now, go spend more of your hard-earned money at one of our exclusively-licensed dispensaries near you! It's an absolutely despicable form of corporatism. Appalling!

The State of Maryland has really dropped the ball on this one. These are some of the most despicably authoritarian and corporatist marijuana legalization regulations we've ever laid eyes on. It'll be interesting to find out whether or not Marylanders actually know how authoritarian these regulations are, and how many innocent people end up getting kidnapped and thrown in a cage because - God forbid - they happen to have more than two marijuana plants growing in their home in a state where it's supposedly legal.