Shawn Collins is the founder of The Homegrown Consulting Group and the former inaugural Executive Director of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission. Before the Commission formally existed, he helped design the regulatory framework that guided Massachusetts through adult-use cannabis legalization. He then led the agency through one of the most closely watched regulatory rollouts in the country, including the launch of the first adult-use cannabis market east of the Mississippi River.

A Suffolk University and Suffolk Law graduate who worked full-time while earning both degrees, Shawn built his career in Massachusetts government and public policy, including senior roles in the State Senate and Massachusetts State Treasury. That background shaped the way he advises clients today: with practical judgment, political fluency, and a clear understanding of how regulation is built, interpreted, and enforced.

Under Shawn’s leadership, Massachusetts built a comprehensive cannabis regulatory structure, launched one of the nation’s earliest statewide Social Equity Programs, and oversaw the growth of a legal market that generated billions in sales across the Commonwealth. He also helped establish the Cannabis Regulators Association, or CANNRA, extending his role in shaping policy conversations beyond a single state.

Today, Shawn advises operators, investors, trade associations, and policymakers in cannabis and hemp - and in the markets they're colliding with, alcohol first among them. He also takes select engagements in other regulated industries; the discipline travels. He is known for translating policy into practical strategy when the legal, political, and commercial stakes are high, and his work has been recognized by Boston Magazine and covered by the Boston Globe, WBUR, and Commonwealth Beacon.

Six mornings a week he publishes Policy, Decoded, a close-read analysis of cannabis and hemp regulation, and he maintains Deadlines, Decoded, a running ledger of what takes effect, when, and where to read the law itself. The consulting and the publishing run on the same engine: reading the actual rule, every day, before it takes effect.