California Passes Historic Reform Legislation—Now What?

Assembly Bills 243 and 266 and Senate bill 643 will soon be the law of the land here in California, bringing a regulatory framework to California’s thriving medical cannabis system for the first time ever. This legislation was years in the making, with Assembly Members Bonta, Cooley, Jones-Sawyer, Lackey and Wood being joined this year in their efforts by Senator McGuire and even Governor Brown. The bills are undeniably complicated and will roll out their effects over the next two years, setting the table for a legalization effort next year. More importantly, it sets up cities and counties with a set of rules and governance that will empower cities to bring licensed, aboveground brick-and-mortar collectives to their communities. We’ll finally see extractors no longer have to hide underground and no longer see edibles with questionable quality standards. Medical cannabis will be tested. For patients, prices should drop and variety should increase. This is a huge inflection point for California’s cannabis community, a historic handoff from the days of patient activism to the days of industry organizing, and I can’t help but hear Damian Marley’s words: “Now to all my ganja farmer selling pounds of cannabis . . . .That study economy like a real economist.”

All things change, all things evolve, all things mature. The current players in the cannabis industry must see what’s on the horizon. Learn from the experiences from the repeal of alcohol prohibition, from the experiences of cannabis legalization in other states and learn that you cannot live in a bubble anymore. Big tobacco is already here; big alcohol is already here. Earlier this summer, a federal raid in remote Modoc County shut down an unlicensed, monstrous eight-acre greenhouse setup on tribal land. It was revealed that the funding and management for this project had come from a foreign national tobacco executive, previously convicted for cigarette smuggling. Over in the state of Nevada, in their upcoming legalization ballot measure, the powerful liquor lobby secured the exclusive right to distribute cannabis. Big pharma is hovering around the edges, as are hedge funds and billionaires. Is the present cannabis industry ready to compete with these big players? Can they survive what lies ahead?

Cannabis culture is about to become even more mainstream, and the benefits of consumption will be spread to the masses. Clear rules and standards are coming, to encourage new customers into the market, to encourage new cities to open themselves up for business. We’ll see new products and better quality products, a great new era for artisanal flower, high-end extracts and scrumptious edibles. We’ll see cannabis tourism rise, as farms become open for visitors and consumption lounges spread from city to city. That’s what’s next, if we don’t slow down, if we keep pushing the cannabis culture, keeping working the political angles and allow the great cannabis companies here in California to show the world what’s possible.