By John Carmichael

In the coming weeks, Massachusetts lawmakers will debate what to include in a supplemental state budget before the end of the year.

There are plenty of reasons to pass it, from protecting state investments to expanding access to health care and bolstering important state benefits programs.

But as a former chief of the Newton and Walpole police departments, I am concerned about one provision that Gov. Maura Healey included in the budget: a cap on resale prices for tickets to concerts and other live events.

Under the proposal, resellers could charge no more than 10 percent above a ticket’s face value. That may sound like a win for fans, and Gov. Healey’s heart is without question in the right place, but there is good reason to worry that the policy would do the opposite.

Throughout my years leading two law enforcement agencies, I saw what happened when buying tickets through legitimate channels became too hard, whether because a show sold out or prices became out of reach. Interested spectators who sought to attend a live event in the Boston area were forced to purchase tickets through the illicit market, and too often they got scammed, handing over cash in a parking lot or paying a stranger on Craigslist for tickets that turned out to be fake.

We shouldn’t push more people toward that kind of risk.

Today’s regulated resale market protects consumers from getting burned. Buyers have protections and get their money back if something goes wrong. Yes, resale prices for a sold-out show can run high, but that’s supply and demand at work. A price cap doesn’t change the fact that there are more fans eager to attend a given event than there are seats at the venue in question.

A price cap may look like a simple solution, but lawmakers need to consider what happens when sellers and buyers move outside established marketplaces.

Transactions arranged through social media, anonymous accounts or cash deals can be much harder to trace. And when something goes wrong, victims may have little recourse. From a law enforcement perspective, that's a risk worth taking seriously.

Recall that before Massachusetts voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, every sale happened in the shadows. Buyers had no idea what they were getting, sellers answered to no one, and communities collected nothing in tax revenue.

Bringing those sales into a licensed, regulated market changed that dynamic, and cities like Newton now collect revenue from licensed stores. We shouldn’t go backward with ticketing. We should keep moving the legal marketplace forward while taking steps to make it even safer and even more consumer friendly.

To her credit, Gov. Healey’s proposal includes provisions intended to address real

consumer-protection problems, including speculative ticket listings. Those measures deserve consideration on their own merits. But prohibiting deceptive practices and restricting the price of a legitimately owned ticket are two very different approaches.

Lawmakers should consider whether a price cap could push more transactions into less regulated markets, where consumers are more vulnerable to fraud.

The state also needs to give regulators real power to pursue repeat offenders, go after fake tickets, and penalize dishonest sellers. Rules without consequences amount to mere suggestions, and scammers don’t care about suggestions.

Fighting fraud requires transparency, accountability and meaningful enforcement. Those considerations deserve a central place in this debate.

Fans in Newton and across Massachusetts deserve a ticket market that is fair, transparent and safe, not one that sends them back to the parking lot or the seedy parts of the internet.

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John Carmichael is a former Chief of Police for the City of Newton and the Town of Walpole