It’s a mess. That is the assessment of growers, processors, newspapers, county officials, retailers, all licensees, law enforcement, radio hosts, state politicians, and the legislature about the California legal cannabis laws and regs. And where I am now, Ukiah in Mendocino county, they’ve got their own problems.
Mendocino County, one of the cannabis-growing counties of the Emerald Triangle, has about 1,000 state-licensed legal growing operations. Even after legalization in 2016, about 9,000 have yet to be licensed, so are “illegal”.
The great bureaucratic red-tape licensing procedure in California is to blame for this, everyone agrees. But even those 1,000 that have state licenses are only holding “temporary” licenses, due to expire at the end of the year until the state can figure out how to grant permanent licenses. When they do, Mendocino licensees won’t be able to convert because the Mendo county zoning rules conflict with state law. They’ve got to get it straight real quick or the entire county will be illegal. Kinda like declaring grapes illegal in Napa County.
Why? How in the world can California fuck up growing weed? Arrogance, hubris, “We’re California and we know how to do this”. Turns out they didn’t.
Start over, California. Your current cannabis laws are the worst in the nation.