State Cannabis Ombudsman Works To Make CT More Competitive In Adult-Use, Medical Markets

June 16, 2025

Cannabis plant from CTPharma Credit: Christine Stuart / CTNewsJunkie

HARTFORD, CT — As the nation’s first cannabis ombudsman, Erin Gorman Kirk looks after medical marijuana patients’ needs, advocates for their interests, and works to build relationships with the state’s various cannabis growers and cultivators. She also works with the Department of Consumer Protection, which is the watchdog for the medical and adult-use cannabis markets in the state.

Now on the job for a full year, Kirk said the 2025 legislative session included a few measures that she said would help Connecticut compete with neighboring states.

“In an effort to keep our patients here and to maybe capture travelers, vacationers, concert goers and others, we’re doing reciprocity of medical cards, so that if others are coming through the state, they can shop here,” she said. “We have a lot of our patients … going from Maine to New Jersey. What we’re trying to do is give them a reason to stay in Connecticut.”

Since adult use became legal in the state in January 2023 there has been a precipitous decline in the number of registered medical marijuana patients in the state, from around 50,000 to just 34,000 as of May 2025.

Part of that decline has been the lack of availability of specific medical marijuana products at many of the state’s hybrid or medical dispensaries, as producers and growers scaled back more potent forms of cannabis due to the declining numbers buying it.

Kirk said the legislature addressed that with House Bill 7178, which allows for increasing the THC potency levels for cannabis flower and concentrates in the state starting October 1. THC is the psychoactive cannabinoid that gives users the high.

“I believe it will incentivize producers to make the higher THC products because now they can sell them to everyone,” Kirk said.

But despite this ‘universality’ as Kirk calls it, of being able to purchase higher potency cannabis from any type of legal cannabis dispensary in the state, she said there are still issues with the quality of cannabis products in Connecticut compared to other states.

“One of the main things I’m finding is that I go to a facility that’s growing, and I see really good, nice, moist, what they call sticky bud. By the time we get it, maybe six months later, it’s dry as a bone,” she said. “There have been a lot of issues with final form testing and the various requirements here.”

Kirk said she has undertaken ‘secret shopping’ at dispensaries in the state, but also admits to not having had much of the product she purchased tested as she doesn’t have access or the budget for lab testing.

She said she gets a lot of contact from patients in the state, of which she is one herself, about the quality of cannabis they’re seeing when they purchase in Connecticut, from hard to open packages to almost dust-like product inside.

When this happens, she contacts the grower or supplier to talk through what she’s seeing.

Kirk, though, has no statutory power over the industry. That is in the hands of the Department of Consumer Protection (DCP).

“I actually have gotten along with them a lot better in the last six months. I think initially they weren’t sure of my role, and they were, you know, charging forward with their mission,” she said. “Now we have monthly calls, although we can pick up the phone any time.”

The improved relationship has led to several ideas she had being taken up or considered by DCP, including using QR codes to tell legal dispensaries from smoke and vape stores who may be selling cannabis in Connecticut illegally.

Still, the Connecticut cannabis industry is not perfect, she said.Despite medical marijuana having been legal in the state since 2012, the newer adult-use market, which is not yet three years old, is struggling.

Producers and craft growers are waiting on the sidelines to start their businesses, and Kirk believes that will help make a big difference moving forward. But in the meantime some big corporations have already decided to exit the Connecticut marketplace.

Acreage Holdings, who owned and ran The Botanist dispensaries in the state, have been acquired by BUDR and will continue operations elsewhere.

And then the lesser-known AYR Wellness company, which operated a dispensary in Manchester, is also leaving, Kirk said.

“I’m crushed about that. They are staying in other states around, so that tells me that they either feel that we’re overregulated or that we just have too many restrictions,” Kirk said. “One of the things I hear is they can’t advertise. Their labels are all generic. They don’t feel they can differentiate.”

That issue though is something that affects all cannabis companies in Connecticut and Kirk feels is another reason why the nascent adult-use market has failed to perform so far.

But she hopes, like the craft beer industry, if cannabis in Connecticut is allowed to do the same thing, that might be the ticket to the industry’s future success. Medical marijuana patients can find out more about the cannabis ombudsman’s office here.