The Cultivating Caregiver Act · 2027 session
A license for caregivers to grow cannabis for their patients.
The Cultivating Caregiver Act creates a state license that lets a registered caregiver grow cannabis at one secured site for up to five patients who name them in writing. No sales, no advertising, one site, plants tied to named patients. It also raises what patients may grow for themselves, and opens a medical supply route for tested plants. Today a patient can buy seedlings only by buying as an ordinary adult consumer — from a micro-cultivator, three every six months, by delivery, with tax.
A medical-only proposal. It amends Connecticut’s medical cannabis chapter. Adult-use home cultivation under § 21a-278c is not amended and does not change.
What Connecticut has now
Connecticut has run a medical cannabis program since 2012. As of July 2026 the state has 30,505 registered patients and 2,591 registered caregivers.
Section 21a-408d(b) lets a qualifying patient eighteen or older grow three mature and three immature plants in the patient’s own primary residence, secure from access by anyone other than the patient or the patient’s caregiver, with a twelve-plant household cap. The Department of Consumer Protection’s policies and procedures, at § 21a-421j-39, add that the plants must be in an indoor locked area, must not be visible from public view, and that an immature plant must be non-flowering and no taller and no wider than eight inches. That same section provides that a qualifying patient’s caregiver may assist with the cultivation and preparation of the plants for the patient’s use.
So caregiver help with growing is already permitted. What limits it is scale and durability. It happens only at the patient’s own address. A caregiver may serve one patient unless they have a parental, grandparental, guardianship, conservatorship, spousal or sibling relationship. Cultivation is not among the four acts § 21a-408b(b) lists as protected from arrest, and whether conduct a departmental policy authorizes is nonetheless covered by that statutory immunity has not been settled. And the policy that authorizes the assistance expires July 1, 2028 unless it is adopted as a final regulation.
What the license would change
A licensed cultivating caregiver could grow at one secured site — their own residence or a patient’s — for up to five designated patients, with the caregiver’s assistance role written into statute rather than left in a departmental policy.
It does not create the caregiver system, which has existed since 2012, and it does not remove the patient’s own right to grow.
What the bill does
Fourteen sections, all within the medical program. The full text and a section-by-section summary are on The Bill.
| Change | What it means |
|---|---|
| A cultivating caregiver license | A registered caregiver may apply for a state license to cultivate at one secured site for up to five patients who designate them in writing, with no sales, no advertising and cost reimbursement only. Section 14 amends § 21a-408b to lift the one-patient limit for licensees, to add cultivation to the acts protected from arrest, and to state in statute that a caregiver may assist a patient with cultivation. |
| Higher limits for patients who grow | Registered qualifying patients go from three mature and three immature plants to six mature and twelve immature, with a twenty-four-plant household cap among qualifying patients. |
| A medical channel for tested plants | Only micro-cultivators may sell cannabis seedlings, and only three per person every six months, so patients buy as ordinary consumers and pay tax. The bill opens a medical channel sized to the plants the buyer may lawfully grow. Detail and citations are on The Bill. |
| A Compassionate Care Fund | Half of every license fee goes to a fund that assists patients and caregivers who demonstrate financial need. No portion of any fee may be used for enforcement. |
| Cultivation in a secured outdoor space | Plants that are already lawful may be grown in a locked enclosure at least six feet high on the grounds of a residence, rather than only in an indoor locked area as § 21a-421j-39(a) now requires. |
Every provision above applies to the medical program only.
Why it matters
A patient who cannot manage cultivation alone, or cannot equip an indoor space, depends on someone else to do it. Today that person may help only at the patient’s own address, may help only one patient, and does so under a departmental policy rather than a statute. The license is a way to do the same work at a workable scale, on the record, with the Department knowing who is growing and for whom.
Connecticut’s medical program is also shrinking. The figures below establish context. They do not establish that caregiver cultivation would reverse the trend, and this project does not claim it would.
Figures from Department of Consumer Protection registrant and quarterly certification data. Enrollment fell from a rounded DCP figure of 54,000 in October 2021 to 30,505 in July 2026. Over the same period the number of registered certifying practitioners rose 22.3%, which makes a shortage of certifying clinicians an unlikely primary explanation. See The Data for the full series and its limits.
Safeguards
The Department of Consumer Protection raised four concerns about a caregiver cultivation bill in 2025. Each one is answered in the current draft rather than argued with.
| Concern raised | How the bill answers it |
|---|---|
| A secondary commercial market | Five patients maximum. Written designation filed with the Department. No sales, no advertising, one site, no other cannabis license, cost reimbursement only. |
| Diversion | Every plant derives from a named patient. Canopy capped at 500 square feet. Graduated civil penalties. |
| Contamination | Subsidized voluntary testing, a required no-cost education module, and a medical channel for seedlings that state law already requires to be tested. |
| Departmental resources | A tiered annual license fee from $240 to $1,500, with half retained by the Department and capped at its documented cost. |
The Department did not mark a position for or against. The full text of each concern, and each answer, is on Concerns.
This has been before the legislature once
Proposed H.B. No. 5429 (LCO 2394) was filed in the 2025 session by Rep. Michael “MJ” Shannon and Rep. Laurie Sweet, with seven co-sponsors. The General Law Committee held a public hearing on February 14, 2025. Sixty-six filings are indexed. Sixty-two supported, one opposed, and three took no position or filed general comments. No committee vote was ever taken.
Those filings concerned the 2025 bill, not this draft, and none of the people who filed has been asked about the current proposal. The complete list is on The Record.
Where to start
| If you are | Start here |
|---|---|
| A legislator or staffer | For Legislators — the ask, the bill text, and answers to the questions you would otherwise have to research. |
| A patient or caregiver | Take Action — how to submit written testimony, with a template. |
| A reporter or researcher | Sources — every figure on this site, with its citation and verification status. |
| Skeptical | What We Are Not Claiming — the limits of this argument, stated by us. |