Stoners plus politicians = let’s Bogart this joint!
Twenty years after medical marijuana law’s passage, pols finally get around to writing the rules.
Stoners and politicians have both earned a reputation for being slackers of late; lawmakers can’t seem to pass budgets on time, and the stoners can’t remember where they put their wallets. Put the two together and it takes a staggering twenty years to get anything done. Case in point, voters in the Golden State had approved Proposition 216, the Compassionate Care Act, that legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes in 1996, but law makers have just now passed a baggie full of regulations and standards dealing with cultivation, labeling and licensing of green medicine while still allowing for local control.
Governor Jerry Brown signed a trifecta of weed laws on Oct. 9, Assembly Bills 243 and 266 and Senate Bill 266, known as the California Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act. The three separate bills are linked, with rules in one pertaining to rules set forth in another. The bills ask other agencies to take a drag on regulation and new bureaucracies will be formed.
Rural counties in California including Mono County have asked lawmakers for some local control and not blanket regulations for medical marijuana, partially in preparation for the legalization of weed for recreational use.
Mono County Supervisor and local representative for the Rural Counties Representatives of California (RCRC) Tim Fesko told The Sheet that the laws contain the language rural counties need for concerns about land usage for cultivation. From the point of view of RCRC, the bills went far enough and the counties are getting the control they asked for, he said.
To grow medical marijuana, for example, under the new laws, a person would first have to be licensed through the city and/or county they want to grow in, but only if local laws and regulations allow for such use. Counties and municipalities may also impose taxes on every step of the process, from cultivation to processing to distribution and sales.
The bills deal with regulation and environmental issues. AB 243 asks the Department of Finance for $10 million to get a proposed Medical Cannabis Fines and Penalties Account open. Money collected from growers or dispensaries in violation of new regulations would go into the fund that will go to pay for local cannabis regulation enforcement and remedy environmental impacts.
The bills ask for involvement from many different agencies including the Department of Fish and Wildlife and State Water Resources Board to establish task forces and teams to deal with illegal or unlicensed grows and the environmental impacts of pesticides and fertilizers.
Standards for the use of pesticides and labeling will be established. Labels will show the potency of the product, be it dried flowers or a hash brownie, and the levels of pesticides and other impurities. The Department of Pesticide Regulation will establish a certified organic designation for medical marijuana by 2020.
Department of Food and Agriculture will set up a Medical Cannabis Cultivation Program and be the sole issuer of “unique identifiers” or zip-tie tags, to go on the stalk of each licensed medical marijuana plant for super-growers, or those cultivating more than 100 square feet.
The new regulations will not interfere with an employer’s rights and obligations to maintain a drug and alcohol free work place or require an employer to accommodate an employee’s use. The new laws will not affect existing workplace policies that prohibit marijuana use by an existing or potential employee.
Legalization for recreational use in California appears inevitable, either by voter referendum or legislature, in 2016.
