Cannabis Laws in California - What Does It Mean for You?

We are entering a new era in California cannabis. With the passage of MCRSA and Proposition 64, cannabis businesses are now finally able to come into the light. Cannabis is moving from being maybe the least regulated agricultural product in the state to probably the most regulated. It’s going to be an adjustment, to say the least.

Over the past several weeks, the state agencies that will be in charge of different types of cannabis business licensing have released draft regulations for the various types of businesses. The draft regulations give us a good idea of just how much work it will take to get licensed. The regulations include requirements that cannabis businesses who want to get licensed use state of the art security equipment, submit professional architectural plans for their sites, and use renewable energy to meet nearly half their power requirements. Manufacturers of concentrates and edibles will have to come up with and abide by strict sanitation requirements, while cultivators will be required to undergo stringent environmental inspections. Every plant has to be tracked from the moment it sprouts to the moment the product from it is sold. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Compliance won’t be easy, but as hard as it is, it’s a tremendous opportunity. Not only can you come into the light, but the cannabis industry is now ripe with chances for participants to become cutting-edge innovators. If we do this right, we become an example for other industries to follow. In a few years, when inevitably the manufacturing sector is required to abide by similarly strict environmental standards, they will look to cannabis producers and distributors as an example of how to best comply and come up with ways to reduce environmental impacts and costs alike. When the wholesale housewares industry is looking at how to streamline inventory management, they will look at some of the most inventive track and trace programs as an example of how to do it. When the food and beverage industry has to update safety and sanitation and packaging protocols, they will look at the cannabis industry, which will have been operating under those protocols for years by that point.

You can do this, but you need the right professionals helping you out, starting with the best legal team you can find and continuing on to architects, engineers, graphic artists, security professionals – the list goes on. Get the right set of people behind you and get going.

This is a solicitation, and the Law Office of Samuel D. Berns, Inc., cannot guarantee results.