The newly combined California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) published a 197-page draft of cannabis industry rules on Wednesday, which included allowing for wider sales of branded goods and exchanging product samples among supply chain members.
Current regulations, according to the Department of Cannabis Control, are just too complex. According to the agency, existing rules’ wording needs to be harmonized, and definitions of growth and usage restrictions need to be clarified.
The new draft regulations have been released, and a fresh public comment period will begin before the rules are officially approved towards the end of September.
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The California Department of Cannabis Control was created in July after Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed it in the state budget.
The DCC is a brand-new California state agency that was formed in July from the original structure of three distinct bureaucracies that supervised the state’s legal marijuana companies. One of the new agency’s initial duties was to combine the rules of the three previous agencies.
The following are some of the highlights of the new rules:
- New criteria for how trade-sample sharing in the industry may operate, enabling manufacturers, growers, and distributors to freely exchange product samples with others in the legal supply chain.
- New and more specific criteria for marijuana business owners and individuals with a financial interest in a firm.
- Allowing non-vertically integrated cannabis firms to sell licensed businesses’ branded goods.
According to agency spokeswoman Christina Dempsey, the publication of the new proposed rules begins a clock on how and when stakeholders may give the DCC input on its recommendations or provide ideas on how the state might enhance its marijuana sector laws.
Dempsey said, “Today is the first step in the emergency rulemaking process.” “The emergency draft regulations were released for public comment today.
The new regulations, according to Dempsey, contain many possible “big victories for regulated businesses,” including the trade-sample allowance, which has been awaited by the sector for years.
Only manufacturers, growers, and full distributors would be permitted to designate certain cannabis items as trade samples in the California track-and-trace system, and then share those samples with other companies to advertise their products under the proposed rules.
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Retailers, testing laboratories, transport-only distributors, and event organizers, on the other hand, would not be allowed to give out trade samples, but they would be allowed to receive them, she said.
She also mentioned the changes to how businesses must identify their owners and “financial-interest holders,” since those disclosure rules had previously differed across the three agency regulators.
A final feature of Dempsey’s new regulations is that firms that aren’t vertically integrated will be able to offer branded goods other than their own, potentially giving more small businesses a competitive advantage.
