Uggh…thank you for making me shudder…I have been working with the legal cannabis industry in California since Prop. 215 passed twenty years ago and am the Chair of the AICPA Cannabis Industry Task Force. Long way of saying I have a very extensive background with cannabis accounting, tax and regulatory compliance in California. The state level rules and regulations involve twenty two state agencies, the three primary agencies of which, BCC, CDPH and CDFA have issued in excess of five hundred pages of Emergency Regulations.[Let’s not even touch on CDTFA. Then we get to the dual control aspect where local municipalities and counties have substantial oversight of land use for cannabis businesses. [As an aside, it will be very interesting to see if the California courts overturn much of the local government control, particularly over the restriction of where cannabis businesses can operate.
Most people forget that Prop. 215 wrote the right to access medical cannabis into the law in California. There has been substantial litigation of the issue, and finally, People v. Kelly [47 Cal.4th 1008 (2010), [103 Cal. Rptr. 3d 733, 222 P.3d 186] was decided on January 21, 2010, by the California Supreme Court. The decision invalidated a law passed in 2003 by the California State Legislature on the grounds that the law imposed stricter standards on medical marijuana than is allowed under Proposition 215. Under the ruling, the state government is no longer allowed to impose any legal limits on the amount of marijuana that medical marijuana users can grow or possess.
The 2003 law limited medical marijuana users to 8 ounces of dried marijuana and six mature or 12 immature marijuana plants.
The basis for the court’s ruling in People v. Kelly is that the 2003 legislation amounted to an amendment to Proposition 215 and that the California Constitution prohibits legislative tampering with ballot initiatives approved by voters. The defendant in the case was Patrick Kevin Kelly, a user of medical marijuana.
Anyway, I apologize for the digression. The complexity of cannabis regulation in Los Angeles City and County takes everything to another level. The last time I read through the proposed zoning for LA cannabis business, back in December 2017, I wrote a post about it on our website, Los Angeles Advances Cannabis Ordinance, the article is almost five thousand words long.
Thank you for pointing out that they are moving forward with the regulations…I truly dread sitting down to read it, Its times like this that I appreciate Oakland.
I am truly curious to see if anyone really wants to dive into this topic. 