When state regulators ordered Triple M and Good Chemistry to temporarily close their marijuana dispensaries due to chemical crop protection use last year, both companies had a similar response: Everyone is doing it.
Jim Smith, an attorney who represented Good Chemistry (and their cultivation facility in Bellingham), said the company was using organic compounds that are legal on other crops in Massachusetts, and on marijuana in Colorado.
“The compounds we want to use are pesticides that are on your blueberries, strawberries, raspberries with your morning breakfast,” Smith said.
The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources has banned the use of almost all chemical crop protection on marijuana crops. Now that Massachusetts’ legal marijuana industry is ramping up, and the first companies are starting to grow outdoors, the chemical crop protection ban is emerging as a controversial issue. While some say it is required for public safety, others say marijuana is being unfairly subjected to a standard that does not apply to other crops.