With Full Legalization Looming, State Poised to Finally Regulate Medical Marijuana

It took nearly two decades and the threat of a more sweeping initiative, but California lawmakers are finally ready to regulate medical marijuana.

The last-minute, bipartisan deal was announced late Thursday night in Sacramento, after years of disagreements between key stakeholders over details of a regulatory structure -- and weeks of squabbling between the Senate and Assembly over who would take credit for the final legislation.

Gov. Jerry Brown's administration stepped in late last week with compromise legislation that pulled details from a number of existing proposals, but leaves many of the final details to be sorted out by a to-be-created state regulatory agency.

Ultimately, lawmakers split the details among three existing bills -- Assembly Bills 266 and 243, and Senate Bill 643.

The proposals would create a new agency, the state Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, under the Department of Consumer Affairs. The bureau would be charged with licensing the entire medical marijuana supply chain -- including the growing process, testing to ensure safety, transportation, distribution and sales. 

Cities and counties could still enforce their own laws, including levying taxes, imposing a separate licensing structure or banning marijuana growing and distribution entirely. But patient and caregiver rights established by the original 1996 medical marijuana ballot measure, Proposition 215, would not be affected.

One of the authors, Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, said the regulations are "the result of an unprecedented stakeholder process," which included medical marijuana businesses, law enforcement and patient advocates.

Another author, Assemblyman Ken Cooley, D-Rancho Cordova, called the legislation historic.

"It is history-making as policy for its breakthroughs in regulation, public safety, local control and patient access," he said. "It is historic, too, for its method -- active listening by a team of lawmakers and staff who, having opened the door to all groups connected to a devilishly complex topic, find a common center supporting consensus."

In years past, getting the many various stakeholders to sign on was problematic. But a number of potential 2016 ballot measures to fully legalize marijuana for recreational use -- and the recent successful legalization efforts in Colorado and Washington -- helped drive the disparate groups to the table.

Assemblyman Tom Lackey, a former California Highway Patrol officer who helped shape the legislation, said it will "pave the way for a comprehensive set of strategies to cut down on marijuana-impaired driving."

“California is in dire need of a strong bipartisan consensus to manage medical marijuana,” said Lackey, R-Palmdale, in a written statement. "With this bill we are demonstrating that we can bring solutions to complex issues."

And Healdsburg Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who authored SB643 and represents the North Coast, where much of the state's outdoor growing occurs, noted that the measures will require marijuana cultivators to "abide by the same rules and regulations as all other agriculture, including water use, water discharge, pesticide and insecticide use and more."