Written by one of them.
Shawn Collins was the founding Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. He built the state’s program from nothing and ran it for six years, through licensing, enforcement, and every fight in between. Policy, Decoded is what he writes now, and it lands every weekday morning with the operators, investors, lawyers, and regulators who have to act on cannabis and hemp policy before it takes effect. Three partners hold the sponsorship at a time, for twelve months each.
It is a small list, and that is the point. It goes to the people who have to act on a rule before it takes effect: operators running multi-state footprints, the lawyers advising them, trade associations, and the regulators and legislators themselves. That last group includes the agencies that issue the licenses, the departments that write the medical rules, the tax authorities that collect the excise, and sitting members of state legislatures. More than four in ten open it before their first meeting of the day.
46.9%
Average open rate
5
Sponsored editions a week
345
Editions published
The open rate is the four weeks ending October 2, 2026. A sixth edition publishes each week, the Sunday Read-In, and it carries no sponsor.
“It’s an excellent resource and often surfaces perspectives or commentary I would not have considered.”
Hirsh JainCEO, Ananda Strategy
“Learning about problems states are having, traps that North Carolina might hope to avoid. And keeping up with tax policy developments, too.”
Pat OglesbyCenter for New Revenue
“Regulatory updates without a biased angle and, most importantly, coming from people with expertise that I trust.”
Elliot LaneIgniteIt
Quotes are from a reader survey run in August 2026, published with permission.
The Daily Briefing
Three founding partners share the rotation. Each morning one of them is the presenting sponsor, placed after the lead story while people are still reading, with a logo, a link, and copy written by you or written here. On the mornings it is not your turn, your name sits in the supporters line at the top of the edition. Nobody shares the main slot.
Sponsors do not see editions before subscribers do. They do not get stories placed, killed, or softened, and they do not get told what is coming. If a sponsor turns up in the briefing it is because they did something worth writing about, and it will read the same as it would have without the relationship.
The value of this list is that people trust what it says. Every sponsor is buying that trust, which means every sponsor has an interest in nobody being allowed to buy it.
The Sunday Read-In carries no sponsor at all, and it is not going to. It takes a position at the end, and an argument with a logo on it is worth less than an argument without one. That edition stays clean.
Deadlines, Decoded carries no sponsor either. The running ledger of what takes effect, when, and where to read the law itself is free to use, and it sits outside the sponsorship inventory.
Sponsors holding a cannabis license are responsible for compliance with the advertising rules of the states they are licensed in, including 935 CMR 500.105(4) in Massachusetts.
Sponsorship runs as a standing partnership rather than a bought slot. Three partners at a time, a twelve-month term, and three partners across five sponsored mornings puts you in the presenting slot every third edition, with your name in every edition in between.
$1,000a month
Founding rate, for the first three partners
Rate sheet, audience detail, and available dates on request. Sponsorship runs through [email protected].
Ask about sponsorship