California farms, sells, and consumes billions of dollars worth of cannabis. For more than ten years, medicinal cannabis cardholders have been able to purchase marijuana over the counter in licensed dispensaries, who remit taxes to the state and federal governments. Still, figuring out how to do the same with recreational cannabis retail stores, something four other states have figured out, is turning out to be too complicated for the world’s seventh largest economy.
When a big majority of California voters were in favor of Prop. 64 and legalized recreational cannabis use and growing for adults 21 and over, they also set a date for when retail sales would be able to start, January 1, 2018. Sometime in between that day and Election Day, lawmakers would have to come up with a set of rules. That’s the same time frame legislators in Colorado had to set up the nation’s first legal sale. However, according to legislators in California, including those for whom cannabis is supposed to be a problem, it just is not enough time.
“Being blunt, there is no way the state of California can meet all of the deadlines before we go live on January 1, 2018,” state Senator Mike McGuire told the Sacramento Bee. “We are building the regulatory system for a multibillion dollar industry from scratch.” Even if Colorado, then Washington, then Oregon, and then Alaska had not provided California with a model to follow, the state in 2015 passed regulations for medicinal cannabis. Prop. 64 was specifically modeled after the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in fall 2015. Legislators like McGuire, who represents a cannabis-growing region, and yet opposed Prop. 64, were on the hook for finalizing a host of details before licenses to grow, transport, test, and sell medical marijuana were issued.
And in over a year, they haven’t gotten around to that so they can’t possibly be expected to figure it out in less than a year. This heel-dragging is being seen all across the United States. Legislators in Massachusetts want to set back the start of recreational cannabis sales thereby as much as two years. It is common as lawmakers really have no incentive to delay.
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