SACRAMENTO (CN) — With a package of cannabis regulation bills signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, advocates and experts say it's now up to local voters and leaders to decide how their communities will handle the drug.
Researchers and cannabis industry advocates say the legislation signed this week shows promise to address a large gap in cannabis retail and access, as the majority of cities and counties in California still ban commercial marijuana sales.
“On behalf of our members, and all Californians, we thank Governor Newsom for his commitment to cannabis legalization, human rights, and workers’ rights,” said Ellen Komp, deputy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in a statement.
Scott Burris, a law professor at Temple University, said California is taking the right approach with marijuana.
“Regulating rather than criminalizing drugs, drug use and drug users is absolutely the better path. Prohibition has never seriously interfered with drug use, and comes with high economic and human costs in incarceration, policing and violence – not to mention racial and economic inequities,” he said.
While all drugs have risks regardless of legality, Burris said a responsible government concerned with public health and safety regulates the drug business and how people use drugs to minimize harm.
“That means that (the government) rules keep the drugs themselves safe, and uses regulatory tools like taxes and limits on sale venues and hours to encourage users towards safer, lower risk and lower potency products,” he said. “California is right to do more – and probably should do even more – to regulate cannabis to lower consumption and move people away from higher potency products.”
In his approval message signed Sept. 18, Newsom said policymakers need to increase their efforts to reduce barriers to access and expand the legal cannabis market to effectively “redress the harms of cannabis prohibition.” He said local opposition, “rigid bureaucracy” and federal prohibition are still challenges for the industry and consumers.
“For too many Californians, the promise of cannabis legalization remains out of reach,” Newsom said. “These measures build on the important strides our state has made toward this goal, but much work remains to build an equitable, safe and sustainable legal cannabis industry.”
One of the bills he signed, Senate Bill 1326, creates a process for California to enter into agreements with other states to allow cannabis transactions with entities outside California.
Another bill keeps Californians who use marijuana off the clock from facing penalties from their employer.
Assembly Bill 2188 makes it illegal starting January 2024 for employers to discriminate against employees for cannabis use in their personal lives. It also prohibits employers from discriminating against workers based on drug test results that detect inactive cannabis compounds, even from months prior. Instead, employers will have to use tests that check for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical compound in cannabis that can indicate impairment.
Workers can still be penalized for coming to work high. The bill doesn’t apply to employees in the building and construction industries and doesn’t preempt state or federal laws requiring workers to test before taking certain jobs, receiving federal funding or entering into federal contracts.
Newsom also signed Senate Bill 1186 – which preempts local bans on medicinal cannabis delivery to expand patients’ access to legal products – and Assembly Bill 1706, designed to ensure Californians with old cannabis-related convictions will have their convictions sealed. Attorney General Rob Bonta recently issued a bulletin urging county district attorneys and courts to take steps to finish this process.
“This is a must for people of color, especially for Black folks disproportionately targeted by the War on Drugs, which would further support California’s reentry goals,” said Assemblymember Mia Bonta, a Democrat from Oakland and the bill’s author, in a statement.
