A “joint” hearing of the CA Joint Legislative Audit and Asm. Business and Professions Committee was held in Sacramento on February 17 addressing cannabis packaging and its attractiveness to children. Chair of the Joint Legislative Audit committee John Harabedian (D-Pasadena) opened the hearing and turned it over to Asm. Jacqui Irwin (D-Ventura) who requested an audit of cannabis packaging last year. The audit determined that laws and guidance are not always clear on what constitutes a package that is attractive to children, and that the DCC’s enforcement against companies with repeated violations was lacking. DCC’s regulations prohibit cartoonish characters on

Several cannabis bills have been introduced in the California legislature, many of them on the deadline of February 20. Cal NORML will be tracking the following: AB 1564 (Ahrens) – Medicinal cannabis: shipments AB 1826 (Lackey) Cannabis: recall, embargo, and destruction of cannabis and cannabis products. AB 1965 (Sharp-Collins) Cannabis: testing: quality assurance. AB-2249 (Irwin) Cannabis: youth advertising and marketing. AB-2532 (Irwin) Cannabis: packaging and labeling. AB 2250 (Aguiar-Curry) Modify AB 8 to exclude CBN from the definition of cannabis concentrate. AB-2420 (Caloza) Cannabis: donations: seniors. Authorizes cannabis retailers to donate cannabis or cannabis products to persons 65 years of

California NORML and our supporters worked hard in 2022 to sponsor and pass AB 1954, to protect medical marijuana patients against discrimination by their doctors. This was in response to numerous complaints we received from patients, particularly those in the Kaiser Healthcare system, telling us that their doctors were drug testing them and denying them care—including opioid prescriptions and other medicines—if they tested positive for cannabis. Our bill became law on January 1, 2023 (BPC 2228.5), prohibiting physicians and health plans to have policies denying medical treatment to qualified patients with a recommendation to use medical marijuana. The only exception is if a clinical determination

Tell us: Would AB 1564 benefit you? How might it be expanded to benefit more patients and farmers?  Asm. Patrick Ahrens (D-Silicon Valley) has introduced a bill, AB 1564, to allow for the shipment of certain medical products from specified cannabis license holders directly to patients. Ahrens’s attempt at the bill last year, AB 1332, passed unanimously in the Senate and Assembly last year; however Gov. Newsom vetoed it. “While I appreciate the author’s goal of expanding patient access to medical cannabis, the proposed direct-shipping program would be burdensome and overly complex to administer,” Newsom said in his veto statement. “The Department

Efforts to reform federal cannabis laws remain stuck on hold in Washington, D.C.  There is no indication as to whether the administration plans to move marijuana from Schedule I to III, as proposed by the Biden administration in April 2024. The DEA’s leadership has expressed skepticism about the proposal and has been sitting on it ever since. President Trump is reported to have privately indicated his interest in rescheduling to cannabusiness interests. However, his advisors are thought to have mixed views. In August, Trump declared that he was actively reviewing the question and would reach a decision in “the next