California Cannabis Bill Round-Up: What Matters Most

It’s not a normal day in California if there aren’t around 50 cannabis bills floating around Assembly halls. And this legislative session did not disappoint in getting certain much-needed cannabis legislation passed (though some important legislation also bit the dust). All in all, there is a lot of legislation and it can be difficult to keep track of. It can also be difficult to identify what’s going to have the greatest impact on California’s cannabis industry. We are still in an emergency rule period under MAUCRSA (with permanent regulations probably taking full shape and adoption in early 2019), so it’s comforting to see the legislature fill some of the gaps left over from the emergency rules.

Here’s my list of the most important/recent cannabis bills of 2018 for California:

Provisional licenses. Without a doubt, the industry would have gone into a tailspin and then come to a screeching halt after December 31 of this year without the advent of provisional licenses. We wrote about the provisional license bill, SB 1459, before its passage, and the bill is now law. The basic gist is that if your business holds or has held a temporary license and you’ve file for your annual license, you’re going to get a provisional license (which is good for only one year) in order to keep operating while you pursue your annual license. Temporary licenses will not be issued after December 31 of this year, so this is the new vehicle for continued operation in California while you wait on your annal license. Here’s a fact sheet from CDFA that details what you need exactly for a provisional cultivation license (the other agencies haven’t released anything yet as of the writing of this post).

Events. Finally, the legislature got on board with expanding the venues at which cannabis events can be held. AB 2020 now allows cannabis events to take place at “a county fair event, district agricultural association event, or at another venue expressly approved by a local jurisdiction for the purpose of holding temporary events of this nature. . .” Of course, local jurisdictions still have to approve of these events and only licensees can throw them, but this is a big move for the increased normalization of cannabis in California where we’re now beyond allowing licensees to have temporary events at only county fairs and district agricultural association events as was previously the case.

Cannabis convictions. AB 1793 represents the continued implementation of Prop 64. Namely, when it comes to cannabis-related convictions, Prop. 64 “authorizes a person to petition for the recall or dismissal of a sentence, dismissal and sealing of a conviction, or redesignation of a conviction of an offense for which a lesser offense or no offense would be imposed under [Prop. 64].” In turn, AB 1793 mandates that the State Department of Justice/Office of the Attorney General, before July 1, 2019, review all existing criminal records in the state’s database to identify past convictions that are eligible for recall, dismissal and sealing, resentencing and/or redesignation. The State DOJ then must notify all local prosecutors about the foregoing eligibility. The prosecutors must then, on or before July 1, 2020, review all of their eligible criminal cases to decide whether to challenge the recall, resentencing, dismissal and sealing, or redesignation. If no such challenge is made by that date, the subject court must automatically reduce or dismiss the conviction. Without a doubt, many people in California will have their lives and futures changed for the better due to the passage of this bill.

Social equity. I have long maintained that any meaningful social equity programs on the local level (like those in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland) likely wouldn’t survive unless supported by the state. Thankfully, California is on board with the success of local social equity regimes via SB 1294, also now known as the California Cannabis Equity Act of 2018 (the “CCEA“). The CCEA basically sets up the state to provide “technical assistance” not to social equity applicants directly, but to the local programs that govern them. The Bureau of Cannabis Control (“BCC”) “may, upon request by a local jurisdiction, provide technical assistance to a local equity program that helps local equity applicants or local equity licensees.” “Technical assistance” includes “providing training and educational sessions regarding state cannabis licensing processes and requirements to equity applicants or equity licensees that are coordinated with the local equity program.” Cities and counties will have to petition the BCC for a grant of assistance to get things going under the CCEA, and whether the BCC assists or not depends on various merit-based criteria set forth in the CCEA regarding the nature of the local social equity program.

Pets and pot. AB 2215 addresses veterinarians and their relationship to licensees under MAUCRSA. Under this new law, the Veterinary Medical Board can revoke or suspend a veterinarian license, or can assess a fine, for “accepting, soliciting, or offering any form of remuneration from or to a [MAUCRSA] licensee if the veterinarian or his or her immediate family has a financial interest [in the licensee].” Further, if a vet physician even discusses cannabis with a client (i.e., the pet’s owner) while the vet physician has any kind of an agreement with or is employed by a MAUCRSA licensee, or if the vet physician makes any kind of advertisement for cannabis, the Veterinary Medical Board can revoke or suspend a veterinarian license, or can assess a fine against the vet physician. This is the biggest kicker of all though–AB 2215 “prohibits a licensed veterinarian from dispensing or administering cannabis or cannabis products to an animal patient.” Still, the vet will not get into trouble for just discussing, on their own with the pet owner, the benefits or effects of cannabis on the pet.

Privacy. What companies can and cannot share about their customers seems to be ever changing and certainly constitutes an emerging area of law. And cannabis companies are no exception, and definitely not now in California. As we wrote in a previous post, “AB 2402 is significant in that it prevents licensed cannabis businesses from sharing expansive categories of customers’ personal information with third parties—except in limited circumstances in connection with payments, or where a customer has consented to sharing his or her data with a third party. Notably, AB-2402 prohibits licensed cannabis businesses from discriminating against or refusing service to consumers who do not consent to disclosure of their personal information to third parties.”

No CBD in your booze. For anyone who had dreams of making a cannabis-infused wine, cocktail, or beer, AB 2914. “prohibit[s] a licensee from selling, offering, or providing a cannabis product that is an alcoholic beverage, including, but not limited to, an infusion of cannabis or cannabinoids derived from industrial hemp into an alcoholic beverage.”  Yes, the nail is now officially in the coffin for hemp-derived CBD alcoholic beverages. And this doesn’t just apply to cannabis licensees–it also now applies to alcoholic beverage licensees licensed under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act. Given that CDPH-FDB recently prohibited hemp-derived CBD in all food and regular drinks (via an FAQ), it was really only a matter of time until state government extended that prohibition to alcohol, too.

OSHA. AB 2799 is going to force licensees to get serious about employment laws in California; specifically, it will make cannabis businesses become Cal-OSHA compliant, which really isn’t a bad thing where it’s good public policy to promote and implement safe workplaces for employees. Now, when you apply for your annual license or you to go to renew that annual license, you’ll have to “[p]rovide a statement . . . that [you] will employ within one year of receiving or renewing a license, one supervisor and one employee who have successfully completed a Cal-OSHA 30-hour general industry outreach course offered by a training provider that is authorized by an OSHA Training Institute Education Center to provide the course.”