This is part of a regular series of MJBizDaily interviews with major THC industry players. To be considered for an interview, contact editorial@mjbizdaily.com.
Ryan Dominguez knows what happens in Massachusetts cannabis this fall won’t stay in Massachusetts.
The executive director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition, an advocacy group for the $1.6 billion annual state industry, Dominguez’s main job from now until Election Day is to convince voters in the Bay State not to become the first in the country to recriminalize adult-use marijuana sales.
Fail in that mission, and marijuana legalization is in serious risk elsewhere in the U.S. Succeed, and cannabis policy reform’s most dedicated nemesis not only loses – but might even start teetering towards bankruptcy and extinction.
“This is the first battleground state for repealing,” Dominguez told MJBizDaily in recent interview. “It’s still to be determined how much is going to be invested here.”
But for the legalization movement and the $29 billion national industry, the stakes couldn’t be clearer.
Who’s supporting the Massachusetts cannabis industry?
Dominguez is chairing the No on 8 campaign, formed to oppose Massachusetts ballot Question 8.
If Question 8 is approved by a majority of voters in November, legal retail cannabis sales would end. Roughly 400 businesses would have to close. Nearly 20,000 jobs would vanish. And $336 million in annual tax revenue would disappear.
As Dominguez and others on the campaign are telling labor unions, lawmakers and other business organizations in Massachusetts, blowing a $336 million hole in the state’s budget has consequences far beyond the legal marijuana industry.
So far, that message is catching on. With a $100,000 check, the second-biggest contributor to the No on 8 campaign to date is the mainstream Retailers Association of Massachusetts, a lobby for all storefronts in the state – not just cannabis.
And on Tuesday, news came that the Service Employees International Union Massachusetts State Council, a major labor organization that represents tens of thousands of workers, endorsed the No effort.
“That just shows people across the commonwealth understand what’s at stake,” Dominguez told MJBizDaily in recent interview.
“We’re all coming together to protect the Massachusetts legal and regulated cannabis industry.”
That’s a good thing, because cannabis’ opponents have money to burn.
What is Smart Approaches to Marijuana spending to repeal Massachusetts adult-use cannabis sales?
As recent campaign finance disclosures showed, Question 8 is almost entirely funded by the political advocacy arm of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
SAM Action contributed $3.2 million to the Massachusetts repeal effort through the end of August, compared to $1.5 million received by Dominguez’s campaign.
Much more could come. With $23 million in the bank as of its most recent public filing, SAM – which sued the Trump administration to stop federal medical marijuana rescheduling and organized the opposition to reclassifying all marijuana as a Schedule 3 drug at the historic Drug Enforcement Administration hearings this summer – may be able to bury Dominguez’s effort in money.
“That’s the thing we’re looking at. We’re up against SAM – this is a nationally funded campaign here,” Dominguez said.
“Dollars can swing elections here,” he added.
“If there’s a huge $10 million check that comes in, that changes the math of what we need to raise to compete.”
Why is adult-use cannabis repeal on the Massachusetts ballot?
Though SAM launched nascent repeal efforts in Arizona and Maine, Dominguez believes it’s no accident or surprise that the repeal effort advanced furthest in Massachusetts.
Voter initiatives in the state can qualify for the ballot with relatively few signatures: under 75,000 for preliminary qualification, and then another 12,429 to go before voters. In Arizona, a repeal effort would need 127,975 signatures.
Massachusetts is also more densely populated, meaning fewer people and less money is needed to blanket the state in advertisements and campaign workers.
It’s also on the East Coast, where cannabis legalization is a newer experiment.
“There’s some symbolic nature to Massachusetts,” Dominguez noted. “Given we’re the first state on the East Coast to legalize adult-use cannabis before the huge wave… it’s a state considered to be liberal.”
“They’d be able to potentially use us as a playbook, for Maine next year, and for some of these other states.”
“What I’ve been trying to preach nationally is that if they take away adult-use here in Massachusetts, what does that mean to places like Pennsylvania and Florida, which are trying to fight to get from medical to adult use?”
Who bankrolls Smart Approaches to Marijuana?
It’s also probably no accident that a repeal campaign appeared in what many legal marijuana operators in mature states consider a prolonged bear market.
Big national operators’ struggles, including bankruptcies and court-ordered receiverships, mean there’s less resources available to devote to political campaigns – even existential ones.
For Dominguez, that just emphasizes the importance of the No on 8 campaign.
Since SAM is a dark-money nonprofit not required to reveal its donors, it’s still a secret who bankrolls the organization.
Whomever it is, they may be reluctant to keep funding a losing effort.
“If we beat SAM here, I think it’s an opportunity for us to put a really big dent in what they’re able to do going forward,” Dominguez told MJBizDaily in a recent interview.
That also means Dominguez and the No on 8 campaign need not just to win, but win decisively.
What will it take to keep adult-use cannabis sales legal in Massachusetts?
In 2016, Massachusetts legalized adult-use cannabis with 54% of voters in favor. If Question 8 fails but with only 53% of voters in favor of keeping legal cannabis, SAM “is going to count that as a win for themselves,” Dominguez said.
And results to date suggest SAM won’t play fair.
As MJBizDaily reported last year, allegations of fraud and deceptive tactics marred the repeal effort’s signature-gathering campaign.
But early results also suggest that it’s cannabis’ opponents who have the work to do to convince voters.
As Talking Joints Memo reported last week, the Massachusetts state Republican Party declined to endorse Question 8.
Considering the Republican Party has led repeal efforts in other states such as Florida, that’s significant.
“Cannabis is not a one-party issue here,” Dominguez said.
While some members of the Massachusetts state Republican committee are involved with the repeal effort, their failure to convince fellow travelers to sign onto the repeal is encouraging, he said.
“That really shows that there’s possibly widespread support, and not all of the Mass GOP is on the yes side of this.”
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Who supports Massachusetts adult-use cannabis sales?
Ahead of Election Day, Dominguez is focused on wrangling support from elected officials starting from the ground up, starting with mayors and state representatives. And it’s working.
Along with the SEIU state council endorsement, “We have a majority of the Legislature supportive,” he said.
Dominguez hopes other labor unions will follow. And organized labor means bodies on the campaign trail, knocking on doors and talking to voters.
There’s also support Dominguez did nothing to win. The local arm of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing political organization that helped propel New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to victory, registered a campaign committee in opposition of Question 8, campaign finance records show.
“It’s been great to see the breadth of the coalition standing together saying repeal isn’t the right answer,” Dominguez said.
But reality tempers his enthusiasm.
“I will just say we definitely need more fundraising,” he said.
“More resources coming in means we can have more folks out in the field, more folks reaching out to voters.”
And, possibly, more of a chance to deal a severe blow to cannabis policy reform’s biggest foe.
Chris Roberts can be reached at chris.roberts@mjbizdaily.com.
