Time for another Oregon cannabis roundup. Time to cover some important legislative and OLCC updates, specifically.
Legislative updates
Governor Tina Kotek signed this bill into law last week, on May 28th. There are some key differences to the law signed by Kotek and the version of SB 558 that I previewed in January, at the start of the legislative session.
CIAO, the local cannabis trade group, was a big supporter of SB 558, particularly the provisions around new trade sample limits and producer-to-producer flower transfers.
Here’s what the new law does, with a few comments from me:
- Permits licensees (other than researchers and labs) to provide samples of marijuana items, or to or receive samples, from other licensees or permitted workers at events registered with OLCC.
- People have been clamoring for this for a while, although I’d observe that there aren’t so many events at this point, and it will be interesting to see how an OLCC event registration process works.
- Allows wholesalers to sell or transfer items to marijuana retailers at registered events.
- This obviates the need for post-event delivery runs.
- Allows producers to provide seeds and samples of immature plants to permitted workers, subject to personal possession limits.
- “Innovation without extra red tape” in CIAO’s words.
- Sets minimum sample amounts that a licensee must be allowed to provide to permitted workers, subject to personal possession limits.
- Allows a licensee to provide samples to another licensee for the purpose of giving the providing licensee’s samples to the receiving licensee’s permitted workers, in proportion to the number of permitted workers.
- Authorizes OLCC to adopt rules requiring tracking of sample transfers, ensuring that samples given to permitted workers are not provided to consumers, and allows licensed wholesalers to provide the minimum permitted quantity of samples per originating licensee.
- Removes the requirement that two or more marijuana producers must have common ownership, to transfer usable marijuana between each other.
- This will be very helpful on collaborations and bulk moves that previously required convoluted workaround.
Unlike a lot of cannabis laws passed in Oregon over the years, this one did not go through on an “emergency” basis, and it does not take immediate effect. Instead, SB 558 takes effect 91 days after June 29th (legislative sin die). By my calculation, that is September 28, 2025. The trade samples provisions don’t go live until January 1, 2026.
This one is very close— to use a fancy foreign phrase, its passage is a fait accompli. The Senate President signed SB 162 last week and the House Speaker signed on Tuesday. I have no reason to believe Governor Kotek won’t sign, or that she will veto the bill. Note that even if Kotek doesn’t sign, SB 162 would be enshrined next week automatically.
SB 162 is an omnibus bill, which I also previewed back in January. Like SB 558, it underwent some changes over the course of the session, but still includes certain law enforcement priorities in keeping with the original thrust of the bill. Here is what it does:
Law enforcement stuff
- Allows police officers to destroy hoop houses while executing a search warrant, if the officer has “probable cause to believe that the crime of unlawful production of marijuana is being committed.”
- This is an aggressive and legally dicey proposition, seemingly rife with due process exposure. Watch for litigation.
- Requires OLCC to make its database of hemp and marijuana licensee locations available to the Water Resources Department and Department of Environmental Quality.
- This database is already shared with law enforcement and certain public employees and officials. OK.
- Provides that the Department of Agriculture may inspect biomass or processed industrial hemp stored at a licensee’s location.
- ODA was previously allowed only to inspect these crops during their growth phase. So, more checks.
Omnibus stuff
- Allows OLCC to adopt rules which extends license terms from one year to five.
- This rule would be in the context of license renewals, only, and would lessen the burden on both licensees and OLCC to annually process license renewals.
- Provides that if OLCC learns of a kindergarten within 1,000 feet of a licensed retailer, that retailer can stay put unless the license is revoked for some other reason.
- They’ve been messing with this concept legislatively off and on for years. OK.
OLCC updates
Labor Peace Agreement requirement is gone
I wrote a “breaking news” post on May 20th, the day the Oregon District Court ruled in favor of a couple of Oregon cannabis plaintiffs. I explained that:
Although the ruling is tailored toward these two plaintiffs, the Court functionally enjoins OLCC and others from enforcing BM 119 across the board. The Court found that BM 119 failed under both the National Labor Relations Act and the First Amendment to the Constitution. We’ve long anticipated this ruling here on the blog, because it wasn’t a particularly close call.
I also wrote:
Please also stay tuned for updates from OLCC, which should explain that the LPA requirement is a goner, with license renewals and change in ownership applications proceeding as they did before this regrettable exercise.
Well, that happened. On May 29th, OLCC issued this welcome bulletin, which pronounced as follows:
[E]ffective immediately the Commission will no longer require as part of a new or renewal application for the license types that were subject to Measure 119, a signed labor peace agreement (LPA) between an applicant and a bona fide labor organization, or an attestation. . . .
OLCC will be processing pending renewals if the only missing information was a LPA or a LPA related attestation.
(Emphasis in original.) You love to see it. UFCW Local 555 is on record grumbling that the judge got it wrong and the state could win on appeal. I’d be surprised to see the state take it up.
CBN products sale prohibition, effective July 1
The Commission actually wrote me last week, and asked to provide blog content advertising the coming prohibition on most CBN sales. This rule has actually been a long time coming. I told them I’d write about it, so here it is:
Beginning July 1, 2025, products containing artificially derived CBN can no longer be sold in Oregon, either in the OLCC system or in the general (hemp-derived) market, unless the manufacturer has made a “Generally Recognized as Safe” (GRAS) determination, or submitted a New Dietary Ingredient Notification to the FDA and received a “no objections” response.
OLCC reports that they are unaware of any manufacturers who can currently meet these standards. I’m not either. You can read the OLCC’s full compliance bulletin here, where they trace the rulemaking history back to House Bill 3000 in 2021. I gave my take back then, here.
New OLCC Executive Director
Finally, OLCC Executive Director Craig Prins announced that he is retiring last month. Happy trails!
Prins had a mostly uneventful tenure, at least compared to all that came before. Prins clocks out for good on July 1st, at which point someone named Tara Wasiak takes over. I don’t know anything about Wasiak, other than she works at the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Hopefully that translates, somehow.
