“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…” MLK Jr. 1963

As an insurance and risk-management professional working with cannabis businesses across the country, I spend my career asking a basic question: When risk exists, how do we identify it, reduce it, transfer it and hold people accountable for managing it?

Cannabis presents real risks. Youth access matters. Impaired driving matters. Product potency and contamination matter. Workplace safety matters. And businesses that fail to follow the rules should be held accountable, i.e., the illicit market.

Those concerns deserve serious attention.

But Massachusetts voters considering Question 8 this November should also consider a different risk-management question:

If the risk remains, what happens when we remove much of the regulated marketplace designed to manage it?

Question 8 would repeal Massachusetts laws legalizing, regulating and taxing retail adult-use cannabis. Existing adult-use retailers could seek expedited conversion to medical dispensaries, while the medical cannabis system would remain. The measure would take effect January 1, 2028. 

But cannabis itself would not disappear.

Adults 21 and older would still be permitted to possess up to one ounce of marijuana, including no more than five grams of concentrate, and could transfer that amount to another adult. 

That distinction matters.

The relevant public-policy question isn’t simply whether cannabis carries risk. It does. The harder question is: Which system gives Massachusetts more tools to manage that risk and hold market participants accountable?

In my profession, regulation is part of risk infrastructure.

A regulated cannabis marketplace establishes identifiable businesses operating under licenses and subject to rules and oversight. It creates a framework in which product testing, labeling, age restrictions, security, compliance, contracts, insurance and regulatory enforcement can operate.

Insurance is only one part of that infrastructure, but it illustrates the principle. When a licensed business purchases product liability, general liability, property, workers’ compensation or other coverage, insurers evaluate exposures and impose underwriting requirements. Businesses may be required to maintain security systems, follow safety protocols, document operations and meet other conditions of coverage.

That doesn’t eliminate risk. It makes risk visible and creates accountability for managing it.

Question 8 also raises an important issue for Massachusetts’ social-equity entrepreneurs.

The Commonwealth established its Cannabis Social Equity Trust Fund to expand participation in the regulated industry by entrepreneurs from communities disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement. Massachusetts law directs a portion of marijuana revenue deposited into the Marijuana Regulation Fund to the trust fund. 

These entrepreneurs have built businesses under a regulatory framework created by the Commonwealth. They have pursued licenses, raised capital, leased or purchased property, hired employees, purchased insurance and invested in compliance.

Changing that framework therefore has consequences extending beyond cannabis products. It affects businesses, employees, vendors, landlords, professional-service providers, municipalities and communities that have built economic relationships around a legal marketplace.

There is also a direct fiscal consequence. According to Massachusetts’ official voter information, adult-use cannabis generated approximately $280 million in state tax revenue and $50 million in local revenue in fiscal year 2025. Question 8 would eliminate those adult-use cannabis tax revenues. 

None of this means Massachusetts’ existing cannabis system should be immune from scrutiny.

Quite the opposite.

If evidence demonstrates problems involving youth access, high-potency products, impaired driving, marketing practices, product safety or enforcement, policymakers should examine those problems seriously. Question 8 supporters have raised public-health and workplace concerns, while opponents argue that eliminating licensed adult-use sales would weaken existing safeguards. Massachusetts voters deserve an evidence-based examination of those concerns. 

Good regulation is not static. It evolves.

Testing standards can improve. Packaging requirements can change. Enforcement can become stronger. Education can become more effective. Insurance requirements can evolve as new risks emerge. Regulators can address businesses that fail to meet their obligations.

Massachusetts voters are therefore confronting something larger than a debate over whether they personally approve of cannabis.

They are deciding what framework should govern a substance that will remain present in the Commonwealth.

From a risk-management perspective, that distinction is critical. Eliminating a regulatory structure does not, by itself, eliminate the underlying risk. Consumer demand, public-health concerns and the need for accountability do not simply disappear with licensed storefronts.

Whatever Massachusetts decides, the policy conversation should begin with an acknowledgment that cannabis carries risks—and then ask which tools can most effectively identify, mitigate and manage them.

The existence of risk is not an argument against regulation. It is the reason regulation exists.