Bill to Protect Cannabis Growers in Danger of Being Pushed Out of the Permitting Process Takes Crucial Step Forward
Press release from Senator McGuire’s Office:
With the legal cannabis market teetering while temporary cannabis growing licenses are expiring, SB 67 passed overwhelmingly with bi-partisan support out of the State Senate today.
The bill, along with the administration’s announcement last week to streamline the permitting process to help keep growers operating in the legal market, will help ensure legal Cannabis farmers don’t fall into the illegal cannabis market at no fault of their own.
“The state is moving quickly to catch up to the massive backlog of cannabis farmers’ temporary licenses that have expired. Today’s action by the Senate and last week’s move by the administration will help keep farmers from dropping back into the black market at no fault of their own,” Senator Mike McGuire said. “We’re grateful to work with the Administration – ensuring good actors who want to comply with state law don’t fall out of our regulated market. Without valid licenses, there isn’t a legal, regulated market here in the Golden State and a crisis will take hold.”
Senator McGuire and Assemblymember Jim Wood introduced SB 67 this year, which will allow the California Department of Food and Agriculture to extend temporary licenses held by cannabis farmers while their annual application is being processed.
While the administration will be streamlining the permitting process, the state legislature is moving forward with SB 67 – which was approved on the Senate floor today with a bipartisan 32-4 vote – to fill the gaps in timing for temporary permit holders while their annual licenses are being processed by the California Department of Food and Agriculture through the end of this year.
“I’m grateful that Governor Newsom has put an expedited process in place to address the expiration of temporary cannabis licenses, but we remain concerned that the processing time may still not be able to address the large number of temporary licenses out there,” said Wood. “Because of that, it is important for us to continue to move SB 67 forward.”
Currently, there are over 6,900 temporary state cannabis growing licenses in the state system that would have expired between now and July 2019. In March alone, over 1,000 temporary growing licenses issued by the California Department of Food and Agriculture expired, another 4,000 will expire in April.
“The Humboldt County Growers Alliance applauds the Governor’s office and Senator McGuire for working diligently to ensure that hundreds of our members can remain in the regulated market place,” said Humboldt County Growers Alliance Executive Director Terra Carver.
The State – under current law – has no ability to extend a temporary license, despite the fact thousands are set to expire. To make matters worse, thousands of applicants who wanted to comply with the law and applied for a temporary license did so in the last quarter of 2018, leaving a massive backlog for the state regulating agencies.
As the temporary licenses come due, if the state can’t approve or deny an annual license prior to the temporary license expiring, the license holder will no longer be operating legally and will be kicked into the black market.
“While we are hopeful that the provisional program is successful, CCIA believes that SB 67 will give further assistance to the licensing authorities in processing the backlog of thousands of annual applications,” said Lindsay Robinson, Executive Director of California Cannabis Industry Association. “This is a critical bill for stabilizing the regulated cannabis industry, and we commend Senator McGuire for his leadership in addressing this issue.”
SB 67 will now be sent to the State Assembly.
Earlier Chapter: New Bill Attempts to Forestall Thousands of Temporary State Cannabis Licenses Expiring
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Yeah right Senator. You should look around, the cow’s already out of the pasture, so much for doing the right thing.
No, it appears that you’re placing a band-aid onna gushing artery.
You’ve maliciously destroyed, with #64, the exact people who ought to be growing our nation’s cannabis supply. Your ilk try to talk locally, but locals know and understand the end game.
The politics of “legal” marijuana has continued to fail for thousands of years, we’re survivors. We’re NOT tax collectors cozied-up to the Governor. Sure, sure send in the National Guard and all the Governor’s enforcers, you’ll never control cannabis. Why?
Cannabis is a right to life based upon personal freedom. There’s no need for taxation and punishment. Cultivators and consumers hate the artificial middlemen who are screwing-up daily. Mankind’s gift of understanding how cannabis functions and enables the living to keep on living, makes your laws and sanctions seem evil.
Leave us alone, Repeal #64 and burn-down the BCC.
Good news although who thinks the state will have processed all those temp permits by the sept 2019 ( sunset of extension)..
https://trackbill.com/bill/california-senate-bill-67-cannabis-temporary-licenses/1618804/
.”..help ensure legal Cannabis farmers don’t fall into the illegal cannabis market…”
Haha yeah right. No legal farmers in the black market at all . Wake up . They are funding the permit process WITH it, and banking ON it moving forward.
Another attempt by thieves and extortionists to appear humane and just !!! The thing is that we all see you for what you are !!!!!!!
Election day is coming!!!!!!
Who cares? Every permitted farm I know is selling traditionally, even the ones with a good legal market.
It sure seems to me that the state and county agencies have made this whole process too hard. Too many completely unnecessary requirements. Some regulation is good but c’mon… so many of their requirements have no impact on the environment. It’s just a way for more State and county agencies to get a cut. 2grand for a biologist $2.5grand for water that comes out of a spring on your property that you have water rights to. 5 grand here, 10grand here. It is almost becoming indentured servitude for smaller growers who don’t produce a lot. They have made it so hard that now they can’t even keep up with their bullshit.
It’s a shit show for sure but most of the folks trying to make it through, should have put more thought into it.
Overgrow the government! Their plan was all based on retail prices remaining as high as they were at the height of prohibition. High enough for them all to dip their greedy hands in it. But the traditional growers can supply at half that price…oops! Now they make a new law and *poof* magically extend all the deadlines and keep their “good players” “in the light” to grow and sell thousands of pounds into the illegal interstate market. I hope Trump uses this to destroy Gavin Newsom and his merry band of sleazy corporate investors! That would be funny!!
Eat The Rich!
Politicians for the rich and greedy,representing the “good” players.lol you mean the players that were the biggest snitches for years,used the most water for years,and who used the medicanal laws as cover to get rich!!! Its painfully obvious these politicians only care about $$$$$$$$$$$$. But that’s cool I’ll remember the false propaganda and extortion,and the violations of our property rights,civel rights when I’m filling out my ballot and I hope you all do too.huffman,woods mcguire,newsom you turned a lifelong Democrat into a indapendant.
“Without valid licenses, there isn’t a legal, regulated market here in the Golden State and a crisi will take hold.” I wasn’t aware there ever was a “crisis” without regulation, no gov’t agency ever seemed to care before. I guess the crisis is the politician’s wallets not getting fatter. Damn those left wing socialists trying to control everything with their self-made crisis and their Gestapo gov’t goons, DFW!
Hey, Terra! How about a public outreach campaign to inform consumers of the dangers posed by exposure to weed that has been grown with chemical and any other fertilizers that are contaminated with heavy metals? You know, bio-accumulation, and stuff. What will that do to the “legal, goody-two-shoes, gubbament-ass-kisser image you crave? Not healthy, at all.
By the way, I rejected your advice to kiss up to the people in shively, get a RRR, and sell my land while it was “still” worth something. Guess what, some people like other stuff besides $$$$$$$.
Classic that her advice would be to kiss up to hopefully sell your land to a grower that can multiply your sq footage and leave without the ability to cultivate the plant you want on your own land! So crazy! No other industry has the limiting factors that the cannabis farmer has. Legal cannabis farmers are treated the same tax wise as a cocaine dealer!! How about address that issue. How about address the issue that all the farmers are fixing the roads and paying 100s of 1000s of dollars To fix culverts in this county and eventually most of those farmers will fail leaving their land to be sold at rock-bottom prices to the timber industry who will then come in and rape and pillage the land that everybody thought that they were protecting. What will the hills be like in 15 years??? You think a bunch of small cannabis farmers will still be out there growing??? No chance land prices will plummet and a long-term strategy for the real wealthy of Humboldt County will come into play and they will buy back the land full of trees and do what they do best. Why haven’t we read of a fish and game bust on any of the timber industry here locally in the past 10 years. I’m sure they haven’t broken any rules or killed any habitat and produced any silt for our watersheds…
Humboldt Redwood Co, former Palco, has been upgrading/storm proofing roads since 1998. We’ve been adhering to the regulations that are crushing the small farmers for 20 years. I hate that Mom and Pop operations are getting squeezed because I can relate to frustration of the regulatory regime we’re in. But you have a misconception about our local timber industry
How is anybody surprised about this. This is the exact same thing that’s been happening to produce Farmers around the country for decades. This is a prime example of crony capitalism, which is ruining the countries small business owners and production capabilities. And is a good example of what socialism would look like, or at least how socialism looks in just about every country that is actually socialist. Quit doing the same things over and over expecting different results people…
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/socialist-countries/
get a job
We have one we enjoy instead of slaving away like you who can be replaced in a mere few days. Someday you will realize you mean nothing to the people giving you a check. Your a slave to time drinking the kool-aid you been conditioned to suck on so get back to your Game of Thrones or whatever mundane life you live in front of your TV.
You mean nothing to the pot heads that used to smoke your dope. Now they buy primo, safe, pesticide and crime FREE weed.
No actually they are not. Corporate earnings are plummeting and the consumer only cares where they can get it the cheapest. If you think differently the you are way out of touch with the reality of my industry.
Y’all are negative as hell, at least the farmers are trying to become legal and at least the state is trying to help the prosses from staling out.
Help, lol. Do you have a temporary drivers license for nearly two years that expired and the DMV is supposedly to busy to issue your permanent one. Will you drive around illegally or begin to take other modes of transportation while you wait after you paid thousands to get it back. Then be thankful the state is legislating for your expired license. Oh yea, thank you, thank you McGuire what would we do without you, oh ffs! What I should do is open up acre upon acre and just dump weed on the traditional market at 100 a pound less than market til there are no more corporations left playing. Oh and by the way we can do just that and that scares the crap outta the regulated market. Why play by the rules the state is not.
What happened to bragging about how well you are doing in the legal market on just about every forum regarding legalization? Did your interim license expire and you realize it wasn’t all unicorns and rainbows or something? Your tune has certainly changed. First you brag about how well you were doing in the legal market, now you want to over grow it. Pray tell lettuce, what happened?
I am doing fine actually but I care about my industry and it is being over run by what is going on south of us. Now, whether I remain legal is the question. Might be best to step away from the California market 😉 and come back later when it has matured. As far as my attitude changing I am watching a lot of people losing their homes it is a tad bit upsetting is where that is coming from.