A letter from California Legal professional Common Rob Bonta to state regulators all but ended marijuana business hopes of interstate hashish commerce.
In a 36-page letter despatched Dec. 19 to the Division of Hashish Management (DCC), the state’s chief hashish regulator, Bonta wrote that marijuana exercise between authorized out-of-state companies and California licensees might end in “important authorized threat to the State of California beneath the federal Managed Substances Act.”
The warning – first reported by Marijuana Second – just isn’t a shock, contemplating federal prohibition of the plant, which solid lengthy odds a state regulation permitting such gross sales could be put to the take a look at.
California hopes for interstate hashish gross sales rose in September 2022, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Invoice 1326 to create interstate commerce pacts, overriding a longstanding prohibition on the transportation and distribution of marijuana merchandise throughout state strains.
Enactment of the regulation, nonetheless, was contingent on a number of triggers, together with federal legalization, approvals from the Division of Justice and different main U.S. marijuana coverage shifts.
SB 1326 went into impact on Jan. 1 2023, and shortly thereafter, the DCC requested Bonta, a longtime business advocate as an Meeting member, to supply some steerage on interstate gross sales.
In an announcement despatched to MJBizDaily and different information retailers, the DCC mentioned that “we admire the lawyer basic’s conclusion that the arguments supporting interstate agreements are robust. Sadly, even robust arguments can’t put novel questions past all debate.”
Bonta’s response additionally made a passing reference to defending state workers who could be open to authorized dangers by greenlighting interstate hashish commerce.
“Courts have disagreed concerning the scope of federal preemption within the hashish context, and no courtroom has ever thought-about a preemption problem to a state regulation authorizing interstate hashish gross sales,” the letter famous.
“The regulation can also be unsettled as as to whether state officers could possibly be federally prosecuted for implementing state regulation on this space.”
In Might, Washington turned the third state to create an interstate hashish commerce regulation, thought the statute additionally was contingent on the U.S. authorities legalizing marijuana or permitting such transactions between states.
Oregon turned the primary state with an interstate marijuana commerce provision in June 2019 when its governor signed such exercise into regulation.