20 years ago, California was the first state to ever legalize the medical use of marijuana. Legislators are now drafting concrete policies to replace the inconsistent ones that are currently followed by the billion- dollar industry.
According to theguardian.com, Senator Mike McGuire governs a district that includes the "Emerald Triangle" in Northern California where 60% of grown marijuana plants in the United States are cultivated. He said, "We're making up for two decades of inaction. This legislation brings clarity and desperately needed rules and regulations."
Ken Cooley, author of one of the bills, said that lawmakers have ended their Friday night legislative session by passing three bills that created a concrete framework that gives the state full control of marijuana from "seed to sale" while local authorities can still have the right to create their own ordinances and tax rules. "It's actually innovation in how a state-regulated product gets rolled out in local communities", he added.
According to Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the Emerald Growers Association, a trade group of cannabis cultivators with 250 members, the "local control" aspect has been one of the major points of the new bill even before during its early discussions. However, after "10,000 human hours" of input from its stakeholders, the result of the new bills are "much different than what we were looking at back then."
In a report by ibtimes.com [International Business Times], some leaders in cannabis industry are getting concerned with "regulating an industry that has been unregulated for so long."
Steve DeAngelo, co-founder of the ArcView Group, mammoth marijuana-investment firm, and the Harborside Health Center, a nonprofit dispensary in the state, said the time constraints in passing the bills made it impossible for the legislators to fully study the effects of the new bill to patients who are relying with cannabis medication. He added, "Some of the language in the bill is unclear or may be in conflict with prior legislation." He also hopes that the center will be able to work with lawmakers in the next session to address "outstanding issues."
However, the lawmakers stand firm on the passing of 'Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act.' Assembly member Rob Bonta, a Democrat who authored one of the bills, said they waited long enough. "We knew it had to be done this year", he said.
