Seven months after Californians voted to legalize and tax recreational marijuana, state leaders are moving full speed ahead with a system to oversee the cultivation, distribution and sales of cannabis -- rules that have to be in place, under law, by January.
Many key details of how California will make that happen were included in a bill that was part of last week's state budget deal and is now on Governor Jerry Brown's desk. They range from the mundane, such as changing all references in state law from "marijuana" to "cannabis"; to serious issues, such as giving the California Highway Patrol $3 million to train drug recognition experts; to the more light hearted, such as setting up a legal appellation -- or origin -- labeling process for weed, like wine currently has.
In total, the bill establishes a single set of laws overseeing cannabis in California, reconciling previous laws governing medical marijuana with Proposition 64, the 2016 ballot measure that legalized recreational marijuana use and sales for people over the age of 21.
"We are preparing to take one of the largest agricultural crops, a $7 billion industry, out of the dark and into the light," said state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg. He represents the epicenter of cannabis production, the Emerald Triangle -- including Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties -- and has been one of the key players in hashing out details of cannabis laws in recent years.
"We are building this airplane while we are flying it, coming out of the era of prohibition," McGuire said. "It's no easy feat, and the state of California and every agency involved is in full-court-press mode to get the rules and regulations implemented."