Photo by Rick Proctor on Unsplash

I HAVE SPENT the last seven years of my career operating businesses in two highly regulated industries in the Commonwealth. Over that time, my partners and I have operated both a package store, multiple cannabis dispensaries, and a cannabis farm. Today we have over 45 employees across our facilities.

I read the commentary piece by Robert Mellion, executive director of the Massachusetts Package Stores Association, with great bemusement. He argues that oversight of the state’s cannabis sector has been lax and that it should be regulated like alcohol. I think he has it backwards in two fundamental ways.

First, alcohol is a much more deadly intoxicant than cannabis. Full stop. It’s worth wondering out loud whether alcohol and cannabis should have the same regulatory regime. Under the existing legal cannabis industry, there have been zero reported deaths from legal cannabis use. The same is not true of alcohol use.

Second, cannabis is regulated more comprehensively than virtually any other retail product sold in Massachusetts.

Importantly, Mellion may not understand the existing compliance regime that cannabis operators are subject to. He notes that the state Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission performs “routine, random, and unannounced compliance checks,” and goes on to conclude that “the state must fund and execute regular, unannounced, third-party compliance inspections of all licensed cannabis premises [as] has been done for alcohol and tobacco retail.”

Yet, the Cannabis Control Commission does in fact conduct routine, random, and unannounced compliance checks. I know, because we’ve had them.

Mellion claims that cannabis retailers face only a fraction of the oversight applied to liquor stores and tobacco retailers. My experiences as an operator in both industries is that cannabis, despite being safer than alcohol, is already regulated much more strictly.

The oversight of cannabis starts before the seeds even hit the dirt — with required testing of the growing medium. From there, every harvest is subject to mandatory laboratory testing for potency, pesticides, heavy metals, residual solvents, microbes, mycotoxins, and other contaminants. The Cannabis Control Commission has extensive requirements for proper testing protocols and audits us to make sure we’re following them. If at any point in the process a product fails testing, it never reaches consumers.

Before a cannabis product ever reaches a store shelf, from seed to sale, there is a statewide inventory system that follows every plant on its journey with continuous state oversight.

Every package must be child-resistant, clearly labeled, and carry health warnings. Every transfer between businesses is electronically tracked. Every sale is recorded. Every gram is accounted for.

None of that exists in the alcohol industry.

No one is testing every bottle of wine or whiskey for contaminants before it reaches consumers. Beer isn’t quarantined pending laboratory approval before distribution. Every individual bottle isn’t tracked through a state inventory system from planting to production through retail sale.

But cannabis is.

Can anyone in the alcohol industry tell me about the soil quality of the California grapes that make up their favorite Blanc de Bleu sparkling wine? Or better yet, what even makes it blue?

Cannabis businesses are required to report this information.

That doesn’t even account for the rigorous process we undergo as operators. For me to become a cannabis operator, I had to go through an extensive process that began with comprehensive background investigations before even receiving a license. Our employees undergo the same background checks before they are badged to enter and work at a cannabis facility.

Our facilities are built to exacting security specifications that include 24-hour surveillance, restricted access, alarm systems, alarm monitoring, secure transportation requirements, and detailed operating procedures that regulators can inspect at any time.

The compliance burden doesn’t end once we receive our license.

Licensed cannabis retailers are required to verify identification before every purchase, regardless of a customer’s apparent age. Employees receive mandatory training. We maintain thousands of pages of records and terabytes of video archives. We report every unusual incident to regulators. Surveillance cameras record every transaction.

Our strict 21+ retail rules don’t even let parents bring their kids into our stores when they swing by to pick up a to-go order. Kids can run free around package stores.

Could enforcement continue to improve? Sure. It’s a new industry. The industry continues to improve every year with changes to both the statute and regulations.

Like every regulator, the Cannabis Control Commission should continually evaluate inspection practices, compliance strategies, and enforcement priorities. The Legislature recently took important steps to strengthen the agency’s governance, and industry operators welcome improvements that are consistent, transparent, and effective. Standardization and clarification of enforcement have already taken center stage with the appointment of new commissioners to oversee the industry.

Strong regulation protects responsible businesses as much as it protects consumers.

Ironically, one of the greatest public safety successes of legalization is often overlooked: legal cannabis is displacing a market that has no age verification, no product testing, no labeling standards, no contaminant screening, and no regulatory oversight whatsoever.

Unlike the illicit market, licensed businesses have every incentive to follow the rules because the consequences for failing to do so are severe.

As someone who has operated under both alcohol and cannabis regulations and sold both alcoholic beverages and cannabis to consumers, I can tell you exactly where every gram of our cannabis comes from based on a compliance chain that’s a mile long.

Data, our own experiences, and common sense lead to the conclusion that cannabis is safer than alcohol yet still regulated more strictly. Let’s keep it real about the state of industry regulation.

Wes Ritchie is co-founder and co-CEO of Tree House Craft Cannabis, which operates dispensaries in Dracut, Pepperell, and Groton and an outdoor cultivation facility in Colrain.