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Months after telling Connecticut lawmakers he wanted reforms that would help “extinguish the illegal legacy market,” Simonow was charged after troopers and firefighters broke into a non running vehicle containing two dogs at the Haddam Neck Fair
Three dispensary entities connected to the same business structure made coordinated payments into leadership PAC.
When Connecticut lawmakers passed HB 7181 in June 2025, most attention focused on enforcement, smoke shops, and cannabis penalties.
Editors Note: As we reviewed the record for this article, the number of contradictions became impossible to ignore. Lawmakers warned that shortening social equity protections would increase exploitation risk, then later approved that change.
Connecticut lawmakers warned this would happen. They warned who it would benefit. They warned it would gut social equity. And now, despite those warnings being made on the record, the Social Equity Council has formally proposed the very change legislators said would invite buyouts and push equity owners out.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is asking a court to rule that nearly all records created by the General Assembly — emails, drafts, communications, internal discussions — should be exempt from public disclosure, as long as they relate to “legitimate legislative activity.”
How two professionally established applicants became “equity” through census-tract rules—despite no documented War-on-Drugs harm, multiple denials, and a clean licensing record.
When the Social Equity Council (SEC) announced its 2025 “Partner Award” honorees this week, the post looked harmless — smiling photos, hashtags about leadership, polished talking points about “equity in action.”
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.
