Reading between the lines
A daily cannabis and hemp policy briefing written by Shawn Collins, who built the Massachusetts cannabis program from nothing and now advises governments, operators and trade associations. Subscribers get the same read the clients get.
Shawn is the founder of The Homegrown Consulting Group and the inaugural Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. He helped design the framework before the Commission formally existed, then ran the agency through the launch of the first adult-use market east of the Mississippi.
Under his leadership Massachusetts built a full regulatory structure, launched one of the earliest statewide social equity programs in the country, and oversaw a market that has since done billions in sales. He helped establish the Cannabis Regulators Association, which put him in the room with the people writing the rules in other states.
Before cannabis he worked in the Massachusetts Senate and the State Treasury. He earned his undergraduate degree and his law degree from Suffolk while working full-time.
His work has been recognized by Boston Magazine and covered by the Boston Globe, WBUR, and Commonwealth Beacon.
A regulator inherits statutes he did not write, builds an agency while the market is already trading, and makes licensing decisions on a budget set by people who have never seen the workload. Shawn did that for six years. What stays with you afterwards is the memory of how these things actually go: which readings an agency will take, which deadlines slip, which fights are about the thing they claim to be about.
Trade press can tell you a rule dropped. Policy, Decoded tells you which of the three plausible readings the agency will land on, what compliance will cost, and why an operator two states away should be paying attention.
What we publish
Three things, and they do different jobs
01 · The daily briefing
What moved, and what it changes
Every weekday. What moved, what it means, and what it changes for the people who have to act on it. Sourced and linked to the primary document wherever one exists.
02 · Deadlines, Decoded
What takes effect, when, and where to read it
A running ledger of what takes effect, when, and where to read the law itself. The companion to the briefing for anyone whose calendar is the problem.
03 · The Sunday Read-In
One argument a week, given the room
One argument a week, given the room it needs. Real people in it, and a position at the end.
Published by The Homegrown Consulting Group
Licensing, compliance, government relations, and policy strategy for cannabis and hemp, for operators, investors, trade associations, and the regulators themselves. The work ranges from a one-call read on a sub-regulation to writing the policy the next market runs on. We don't just interpret the rules. We've written them.
That includes the alcohol aisle, where hemp THC beverages are already on the shelf and the three-tier system is learning to carry an intoxicant it was never designed for.
The consulting and the publishing run on the same engine: reading the actual rule, every day, before it takes effect.
The briefing is free and stays free. If the reading turns into work, that conversation starts here.
Read it tomorrow morning
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