By WILL HOUSTON | whouston@marinij.com

Novato’s second round of prospective cannabis business owners received unanimous approval from the City Council.

The council voted last week to conditionally approve three businesses, including a new cannabis delivery business, a 7-year-old cannabis testing laboratory and an all-in-one microbusiness. The businesses must receive state licenses and then return to the city for final approval before they can receive a city license.

The proposed Marin Haven would become the city’s second cannabis delivery business and is proposed to be located at 4 Commercial Drive. Attempts to contact Marin Haven owner Suzanne Brogger on Monday were unsuccessful.

The Velvet Fog Cannabis Co. also received conditional approval from the council. The microbusiness, which would include cannabis product manufacturing, distribution and delivery services, had previously received council approval as part of the first round of cannabis business applicants in 2021.

At the time, Velvet Fog was set to be located at 5400 Hanna Ranch Road, but now proposes to set up shop in a warehouse at 11 Digital Drive because of construction delays at the previous location. The company’s chief executive officer, Michael Clarkson, said he and his business partners plan to open in July or August depending on how the state and local permitting processes last.

Clarkson said they decided to start the business because he felt the cannabis industry focuses too much of its marketing and its jargon toward younger adults, but does not give enough attention to older adults.

“It’s something I think we can provide that niche in the market in our local Marin County,” Clarkson said on Monday.

The third license went to CB Labs, which has been operating since 2015 under the city’s medical marijuana program.

After adopting an ordinance in 2019 to allow for recreational cannabis businesses in Novato, the council inadvertently caused CB Labs to be out of compliance and ineligible for a license. The lab at 1615 Hill Road is located within 600 feet of the Hill Education Center at the Hill Recreation Area, which violated the city’s minimum setback rules for businesses near youth centers such as schools and playgrounds. To address this, the council reduced the minimum setbacks for testing laboratories last year to a range of up to 300 feet, with the distance at the council’s discretion.

“I’m grateful to the city of Novato for allowing us to continue to operate,” CB Labs co-owner Scot Candell, a Larkspur city council member, said on Monday. “We look forward to many years of a flourishing partnership in the future.”

All three businesses are inaccessible by the public. The city does not allow storefront retail sales of cannabis.

While the city does not have a special tax for cannabis businesses, it does enter into “community benefit agreements” where the businesses provide the city or other organizations such as nonprofits a percentage of its gross receipts each year. All three businesses will be providing 1.5% to 4% of their gross receipts in these agreements.

The city staff now plans to accept delivery business applications year-round. While the city has put a cap on the number of licenses it gives out to other businesses, such as cultivation or manufacturing operations, no cap exists for delivery businesses.

“Those are most of the inquiries I get,” Novato senior management analyst Will Morat told the council. He said requests come in every few weeks, if not weekly.

While a majority of Novato voters approved Proposition 64, the statewide ballot measure in 2016 that legalized recreational cannabis in California, some residents have expressed opposition to the change.

“I don’t have a whole lot of appreciation for the City Council allowing pot stores to open in Novato,” resident Sam Roth told the council.

By RICHARD HALSTEAD | Marin Independent Journal
PUBLISHED: September 26, 2021

MarinHealth Medical Center is calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would require hospitals and other health care facilities to permit terminally ill patients to use medical cannabis in their institutions.

The legislation, Senate Bill 311, has become known as Ryan’s Law – named after Ryan Bartell, who was forced to move from California to Washington state in order to use cannabis instead of coma-inducing morphine for his pain while in end-of-life hospice care. Jim Bartell, Ryan’s father, has campaigned tirelessly for a change in the law.

The bill passed with overwhelming support in the Legislature and was sent to Gov. Newsom on Sept. 17 for his signature. It would prohibit smoking or vaping as methods to use medical cannabis.

“Our district board unanimously voted in support of Ryan’s Law SB 311 this year and I am writing in support of that bill being signed into law,” David Klein, CEO of both MarinHealth Medical Center and the Marin Healthcare District, wrote in a letter to Newsom on Wednesday.

MarinHealth is a publicly owned hospital overseen by the publicly elected Marin Healthcare District board. Dr. Larry Bedard, a longtime member of the district board, has been championing the cause of medical cannabis for years. He is a member of the American Medical Association’s cannabis task force.

“Maybe MarinHealth can show some leadership and be one of the first hospitals in California, if not the country, to approve the use of cannabis,” said the retired emergency medicine physician.

Managers at Marin’s other two hospitals operated by Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health did not respond to a request for comment.

Bedard said the district board voted in March to endorse Ryan’s Law and ask Klein to write a letter of support. In his letter, Klein notes that in 2016 the district board voted to explore allowing cannabis in MarinHealth facilities.

“This was done in recognition of the fact that patients and their families were already bringing cannabis to the hospital,” Klein wrote. “It was also put forward with the knowledge that medical cannabis could be treated like any other patient-submitted medication, or (over-the-counter) product, by our pharmacy and staff.”

Bedard said MarinHealth patients may be using cannabis without informing their physicians, risking dangerous interactions with other medications they are taking. He said cannabis can interact with anticoagulants, which thin blood to prevent strokes; painkillers such as Vicodin and Oxycontin; and anti-anxiety medications such as Valium.

“It’s really an argument for physician education,” Bedard said. “The vast majority of the physicians are completely unaware.”

The resolution approved by the district board in 2016 quoted from a Journal of the American Medical Association article, which reported that medicinal cannabis is significantly helpful with chronic pain, neuropathic pain, muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis and paraplegia, cancer chemotherapy nausea, and AIDS wasting syndrome.

Marin Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis wrote in an email, “Cannabis is a psychoactive substance, and while we have real concerns about the known harms of its use among youth, potential palliative effects at the end of life are a different question. If cannabis is being used by terminally ill patients, it makes sense for hospitals to find ways to take it into account in their pain management plan.”

In 2019, Gov. Newsom vetoed a nearly identical bill, SB 305.

“This bill would create significant conflicts between federal and state law that cannot be taken lightly,” Newsom wrote at the time. “Therefore, I begrudgingly veto this bill.”

The California Hospital Association, which opposed adoption of SB 305, has drafted a letter to the governor calling for him to veto Ryan’s Law.

“We do not oppose the use of medical cannabis — or even necessarily its use in a hospital — as a matter of principle,” the letter states. “While California has legalized both the medical and recreational use of cannabis, it remains a Schedule I controlled drug (no accepted medical use) and is illegal under federal law.”

The association notes that the law would require health care facilities to treat medicinal cannabis as a medication and comply with the same storage and dispensing rules required under state and federal law for other controlled substances by requiring a physician order and dispensing from the pharmacy.

“This puts the facility/pharmacist in direct violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act, as the DEA license does not allow for purchase or dispensing of Schedule I substances,” the letter states. “It also puts the pharmacist in charge in direct conflict with the federal Controlled Substances Act, which will put their personal professional license in jeopardy.”

When Bedard testified before the State Assembly Committee on Health on June 8, he said, ““The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services does not prosecute hospitals for in-facility use. They have no federal mechanism to do so.” Donald Lyman, a retired physician and former board member at the California Medical Association (CMS) who testified at the same hearing, said, “They (CMS) have no regulatory mechanism for penalizing medical facilities regarding cannabis use. Nor is there any record of the CMS ever penalizing a facility for cannabis use.”