Front Page › Archive › September 2025
Oregon’s cannabis market started with broad entry. Licenses were widely available, and the number of producers skyrocketed. Oversupply quickly followed, prompting the state to introduce moratoria in 2019 and 2022. Today, new licenses are tied to per-capita thresholds — but the key lesson remains: Oregon let the market grow fast, and then let competition sort itself out.
Connecticut lawmakers have done something few cannabis consumers or patients realize: they’ve quietly built a pipeline that funnels cannabis sales, fees, beverage taxes, and smoke shop penalties into a dedicated enforcement war chest.
Every time you buy a cannabis product from a dispensary in Connecticut — especially a THC beverage — your dollars are not just paying for overpriced product and corporate profits. They are being funneled straight into a state enforcement fund that bankrolls the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) to investigate, penalize, and shut down cannabis and hemp operators across the
Connecticut cannabis patients need to be aware: recent laboratory results show that some products currently passing state testing would fail in most other states due to excessive yeast & mold contamination. For patients with compromised immune systems, asthma, or mold sensitivities, these results should be treated as a red flag.
Rodrick Marriott, longtime head of the Department of Consumer Protection’s Drug Control Division, has resigned just weeks after a state investigation faulted him for his role in an unauthorized inspection of a cannabis cultivator. His last day at the agency was September 2, ending a 17-year career.
The scandal now engulfing Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) is not an isolated mistake. It is the inevitable result of a toxic regulatory culture where power is abused, dissent is punished, and the cannabis industry is treated not as a partner but as an enemy.
It sounds like something out of a political thriller: a sitting U.S. Senator writing directly to a private sports league, warning that their conduct could violate federal law—and invoking his senior seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee while doing it.
Connecticut’s cannabis experiment is not going as promised. Despite a “captured market” with few competitors, the state is posting bottom-tier revenue numbers compared to other legalized states. Now, instead of profiting through a thriving industry, Connecticut is increasingly relying on penalties and lawsuits against smoke shops to balance the books.
