Judge Tosses Marijuana Vapes Ban

The Berkshire Eagle   reports when the Cannabis Control Commission meets Thursday, it could determine whether Gov. Charlie Baker's temporary ban on vaping product sales should apply to medical marijuana patients or whether to allow the prohibition on medical marijuana vapes to expire next week.

A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that the emergency state regulations banning the sale of all vaping products "are very likely invalid" as they relate to medical marijuana patients and ordered that the state may not enforce its prohibition on "marijuana vaping products to medical marijuana card holders" starting next Tuesday afternoon unless the commission issues its own emergency regulations to keep the ban in effect.

A group representing medical marijuana patients intervened in the challenge to Baker's temporary vape sales ban, arguing that the Cannabis Control Commission ,not the Department of Public Health, is the only state agency that can regulate marijuana products.

The group's premise is that the 2017 law that created the CCC "transferred authority to regulate all legal marijuana" from DPH to the CCC and that the Legislature was clear in its law that the CCC should be the lead regulatory body.

Judge Douglas Wilkins, in an order issued Tuesday, agreed and said the DPH "likely exceeded its authority by banning vaping products used by medical marijuana card holders."

The ruling is limited to vaping products for registered medical marijuana patients; it does not affect the ban on nicotine or adult-use marijuana vaping.

Baker's office did not respond to a request for comment on Wilkins' ruling Tuesday.