“If licensed adult-use retailers disappear, consumers will continue to seek cannabis through other channels… None of the alternatives will produce the safe and regulatory tested products, jobs and tax revenue the current legal market generates.”
By Steve Reilly, Insa
If you are a Massachusetts voter who has not been following the debate over cannabis policy, Question 8 on this November’s ballot deserves your attention.
The measure asks voters whether Massachusetts should repeal the laws that allow and regulate adult-use cannabis sales. The implications go well beyond whether a dispensary remains open. The question reaches the system of licensed businesses, product testing, taxation and regulatory oversight that Massachusetts has built over the past decade—seeking to eliminate 27,000 jobs and $300,000,000 in tax revenue that will need to be made up somewhere else.
Understanding what is actually being proposed and what would replace the current system is essential before casting a ballot.
Massachusetts voters approved adult-use marijuana legalization in 2016. Since then, the commonwealth has developed a regulated market overseen by the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC), with licensed cultivators, manufacturers, retailers and testing laboratories operating under regulated state rules. Although there have been documented issues with regulatory oversight, the legislature recently took action to make improvements, and the ballot question could ultimately undermine that progress rather than build on it.
Question 8—formally titled “An Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy”—would repeal the state laws governing the possession, distribution, cultivation and taxation of adult-use marijuana. While the medical market would remain legal and adults 21 and older would still be permitted to possess up to one ounce without civil or criminal penalties, possession of more than one ounce and up to two ounces would carry a civil penalty.
The effect would be to penalize possession over an ounce, while keeping lesser amounts fully legal but eliminating the commercial dispensaries where product can be purchased. The practical effect will be to sow confusion and chaos with regards to what cannabis you can possess and where you can obtain it, likely pushing consumers into the illicit market. This is intentional by those brining the initiative who hope to diminish public support.
A “yes” vote is not simply a vote to change cannabis regulations or impose new restrictions on dispensaries. It would eliminate the existing adult-use retail system.
So what does that mean for consumers?
Today, an adult-use consumer can enter a licensed Massachusetts cannabis retailer and purchase products that are subject to state requirements for testing, labeling, packaging, security and business oversight. The regulated system also establishes rules around who can sell cannabis and where it can be sold.
If Question 8 passes, that licensed adult-use retail structure would go away, giving way to an unregulated market where these products continue to be legal to possess and use. The practical question for consumers is not whether cannabis possession remains legal, rather it is whether Massachusetts will continue providing a commercially regulated, licensed place for adults to purchase cannabis products.
That raises important public-safety questions.
There is also an economic consequence. Since legalization, Massachusetts’s adult-use cannabis market has generated more than $10 billion in cumulative sales, including approximately $1.65 billion in 2025 alone. In 2025, the cannabis industry generated approximately $308 million in state revenue and another $51 million in local-option tax revenue for municipalities that supports cultivation and manufacturing employees, laboratory workers, security companies, construction and real estate businesses, technology providers, professional services and other vendors.
Eliminating the adult-use licensing and taxation framework would fundamentally alter the businesses and public revenues that have developed around it.
One of the central arguments for legalization was that a regulated marketplace could provide adults with an alternative to an illicit market. But if licensed adult-use retailers disappear, consumers will continue to seek cannabis through other channels. Whether that means medical dispensaries, personal cultivation, transfers between adults or illicit sellers will depend on how the market responds.
None of the alternatives will produce the safe and regulatory tested products, jobs and tax revenue the current legal market generates.
As a registered voter, the choice on Question 8 is consequential. Question 8 represents a decision between maintaining a regulated adult-use marketplace that has existed for nearly a decade and moving Massachusetts toward a different model in which marijuana remains legal but unregulated.
As voters consider the question, they should look beyond campaign slogans and understand exactly what the initiative would change, what protections would remain, what would disappear and how those changes could affect consumers, communities, employees and businesses.
Cannabis policy should ultimately be about public safety, responsible access, accountability and informed consumer choice, not an unregulated free-for-all market. Whatever position a voter takes on Question 8, that decision should begin with a clear understanding of what is actually on the ballot. More information is available at at stoptherepealma.com.
Steve Reilly is head of government relations for Insa, a cannabis company that operates in Massachusetts and other states.
