The governor of California signed a invoice on Tuesday that features provisions mandating that social staff who’re referred to as to research baby welfare deal with parental marijuana use in the identical manner that they do for alcohol.
Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D) sponsored the laws, which is one among a couple of dozen cannabis-related payments which were despatched to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) in latest weeks.
Beneath the now-enacted regulation, the state Division of Social Companies (DSS) is required to replace “all rules, all-county letters, and different directions referring to the investigation of a minor” to stipulate that “when a social employee is investigating an alleged case of kid abuse or neglect, a guardian’s or guardian’s use or possession of hashish is handled in the identical method as a guardian’s or guardian’s use or possession of alcohol and legally prescribed remedy.”
In some states, parental marijuana consumption can be utilized as a justification for eradicating custody, even when there is no such thing as a indication of hazard to the kid.
Jones-Sawyer mentioned in a abstract for the invoice that “hashish use alone shouldn’t be a foundation for state intervention into household life.”
“As is the case with alcohol and prescription remedy, mother and father and guardians must be allowed to securely and legally use hashish with out worry of getting their youngsters completely faraway from their care, supplied there aren’t any different considerations relating to the kid’s security,” he mentioned.
In response to a examine revealed in April, legalizing marijuana for grownup use is related to no less than a ten p.c lower in foster care admissions on common, together with reductions in placements on account of bodily abuse, neglect, parental incarceration and misuse of alcohol and different medicine.
Additional, if hashish was legalized nationally, the examine authors estimated that might lead to a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in estimated price financial savings for foster care methods yearly.
Again in California, the state NORML chapter praised the brand new regulation.
AB 2595, to require CA DSS to replace all rules and directions to make sure that a guardian’s use of #cannabis is handled in the identical method as their use of alcohol or legally prescribed remedy has been signed into regulation. Thanks @JonesSawyerAD59 and all who wrote letters!
— California NORML (@CaliforniaNORML) September 7, 2022
In the meantime, Newsom signed two different marijuana payments final week, together with one that gives protections for medical hashish sufferers towards discrimination in healthcare. The opposite laws amends an current regulation that allows registered sufferers to make use of medical marijuana merchandise at hospitals.
The governor can also be contemplating a collection of different hashish reform proposals that the legislature handed in latest weeks.
Final week, for instance, lawmakers despatched the governor a invoice that might be sure that medical hashish sufferers throughout the state have entry to supply companies, ending the present coverage that enables particular person jurisdictions to ban any marijuana license sorts from working of their space.
Sen. Scott Wiener (D) is the sponsor of that proposal. He and different advocates have argued that the laws will each enhance affected person entry and assist fill voids all through the state the place no hashish license sorts have been approved, inflicting issues for sufferers and creating an incentive for illicit suppliers.
Activists had been additionally happy to see a measure offering employment protections for many staff who use marijuana off the job clear the legislature final week, after earlier variations stalled in committee in previous periods.
Additionally final month, a key reform to streamline document sealing for individuals with eligible marijuana-related convictions handed the legislature.
One other handed measure would set the state as much as enable interstate hashish commerce. The sponsor of that laws, Sen. Anna Caballero (D), mentioned in a press release final week that “California can and may lay the groundwork for a multi-state authorized hashish market, which can profit our rural financial system and our staff and put a dent within the harmful illicit market.
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An extra invoice that was handed this week and is now shifting to the governor would amend the state’s medical hashish regulation to authorize marijuana merchandise for non-human animals and defend veterinarians who concern hashish suggestions for pets.
However whereas these measures have obtained ample consideration from advocates and stakeholders, there are much more reform proposals on the desk for motion by the governor.
Right here’s a rundown of different just lately handed marijuana payments that Newsom will quickly act on:
SB 1326: Caballero’s measure would set the stage to permit for interstate marijuana commerce from California to and from different authorized states, contingent on an official assurance that the exercise wouldn’t put the state susceptible to federal enforcement motion.
AB 2188: Quirk’s invoice would “make it illegal for an employer to discriminate towards an individual in hiring, termination, or any time period or situation of employment, or in any other case penalize an individual” solely due to off-duty marijuana use. It might eradicate employment-based THC testing, with exceptions for sure positions, resembling federal workers or these working in building.
SB 1186: The invoice from Wiener would “prohibit an area jurisdiction from adopting or imposing any regulation that prohibits the retail sale by supply inside the native jurisdiction of medicinal hashish to medicinal hashish sufferers or their major caregivers by medicinal hashish companies.”
AB 1706: Assemblymember Mia Bonta’s (D) laws is supposed to reinforce justice reform provisions of the state’s marijuana regulation by mandating the courts to course of document sealing and different types of reduction for individuals with eligible hashish convictions on their data in a selected timeframe. Courts would have till March 1, 2023 to seal data for qualifying instances that weren’t challenged by July 1, 2020.
AB 1885: The invoice from Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D) would prohibit regulators from penalizing licensed veterinarians who suggest medical hashish for animals and revise state regulation to incorporate definitions for marijuana merchandise meant for animal consumption. The Veterinary Medical Board would even be required to create pointers for veterinarian hashish suggestions.
AB 2568: Sponsored by Assemblymember Ken Cooley (D), the invoice would “present it’s not a criminal offense solely for people and companies to offer insurance coverage and associated companies to individuals licensed to interact in industrial hashish exercise,” in accordance with a abstract.
SB 1496 This invoice that got here out of the Committee on Governance and Finance would make a collection of adjustments to the state’s hashish tax coverage, together with by authorizing regulators to increase the deadline for tax funds by hashish companies positioned in areas affected by an emergency proclamation by the governor.
AB 1646: This invoice, sponsored by Assemblyman Phillip Chen (R), would “authorize hashish drinks to be packaged in containers of any materials which can be clear or any colour.”
AB 1894: Assemblymember Luz Rivas’s (D) invoice would add promoting and labeling necessities for hashish vaporizer merchandise, stipulating that they need to be correctly disposed and would represent hazard waste if thrown away improperly.
AB 2210: One other invoice from Quirk would prohibit state marijuana regulators from “denying an utility for a state short-term occasion license solely on the idea that there’s a license issued pursuant to the Alcoholic Beverage Management Act for the proposed premises of the occasion.”
AB 2925: This measure from Jim Cooper (D) would mandate that the State Division of Well being Care Companies submit experiences to the legislature, beginning no later than July 10, 2023, that accounts for hashish tax income that has been distributed to the Youth Training, Prevention, Early Intervention and Remedy Account, as required beneath the state’s marijuana regulation.
Newsom has a protracted document of supporting marijuana reform and backing the state’s market, so he’s typically anticipated to signal these measures. However regardless of his document, he just lately vetoed a key piece of drug coverage reform laws from Wiener that might have approved a secure drug consumption web site pilot program within the state—a transfer that’s prompted widespread criticism from the hurt discount neighborhood.
San Francisco officers have since signaled that they’re ready to defy the governor and launch an overdose prevention program whatever the veto.
In one other disappointment for reform advocates, a separate Wiener invoice that might have legalized possession of restricted quantities of sure psychedelics was just lately pulled by the sponsor after its principal provisions had been gutted, leaving only a examine part that advocates say is pointless given the prevailing physique of scientific literature on the topic.
Right here’s an summary of different latest drug coverage developments in California:
In July, California officers awarded greater than $1.7 million in grants assist promote sustainable marijuana cultivation practices and help growers with acquiring their annual licenses. A complete of $6 million might be allotted by means of this system, which was first introduced in August 2021 and can stay open for purposes by means of April 2023.
Regulators additionally just lately introduced that they’re soliciting enter on proposed guidelines to standardize hashish testing strategies within the state—an effort that they hope will cease marijuana companies from “laboratory buying” to seek out services which can be extra more likely to present larger THC concentrations that they will then boast for his or her merchandise.
In the meantime, California officers are distributing one other spherical of neighborhood reinvestment grants totaling $35.5 million with tax income generated from leisure marijuana gross sales.
The Governor’s Workplace of Enterprise and Financial Improvement (GO-Biz) introduced in July that they’ve awarded 78 grants to organizations all through the state that can help financial and social improvement in communities disproportionately impacted by the warfare on medicine.
The quantity of funding and variety of recipients elevated from final 12 months’s ranges, when the state awarded about $29 million in grants to 58 nonprofit organizations by means of the CalCRG program.
California has taken in almost $4 billion in marijuana tax income because the state’s adult-use market launched in 2018, the Division of Tax and Charge Administration (CDTFA) reported in July. And for the primary quarter of 2022, the state noticed about $294 million in hashish income generated from the excise, cultivation and gross sales tax on marijuana.
The state collected about $817 million in adult-use marijuana tax income over the last fiscal 12 months. That represented 55 p.c extra hashish earnings for state coffers than was generated within the 2020-2021 interval.
California officers additionally introduced in January that the state had awarded $100 million in funding to assist develop native marijuana markets, partly by getting hashish companies absolutely licensed.
Picture courtesy of Chris Wallis // Facet Pocket Photographs.