CA Cannabis Regulations Issued for Final 15-Day Comment Period

Updated 1:10 PM

October 19, 2018 – Regulations for cannabis businesses in California have been issued by the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the CA Dept of Food of Agriculture (CDFA), and the CA Dept. of Public Health (CDPH). A final 15-day comment period on the proposed regulations has opened.

The controversial regulation allowing deliveries throughout the state, which Cal NORML supports, has been amended in the BCC regulations to read:

§ 5416. Delivery to a Physical Address (changes in italics)

(d) A delivery employee may deliver to any jurisdiction within the State of California provided that such delivery is conducted in compliance with all delivery provisions of this division.

(e) A delivery employee shall not deliver cannabis goods to a school providing instruction in kindergarten or any grades 1 through 12, day care center, or youth center.

Comments made by Cal NORML and others regarding the onerous child-proof opaque packaging at the retail level have been addressed in Sec. 5413 of the BCC regulations, which now reads:

§ 5413. Cannabis Goods Packaging and Exit Packaging

(2) Beginning January 1, 2020, a package containing cannabis goods shall be resealable, tamper-evident, and child resistant.

(b) All cannabis goods purchased by a customer shall not leave the licensed retailer’s premises unless the goods are placed in an opaque exit package. (“resealable child-resistant” removed)

Also, the new BCC regulations clarify that clones need not be in child-resistant packages. CDPH regulation 40417 adds more child-resistant packaging requirements for the manufacturer, including adding the phrase, “This package is not child-resistant after opening.”

As suggested by Cal NORML, section 5425, whereby retailers were required to maintain a seven-year record for every sale made to a customer, has been struck from the regulations. However, purchases made from delivery services must still be recorded under section 5420, and section 5409 requiring a daily sales limit of one ounce or 8 g of concentrated cannabis per customer remains, adding this language:

(e) For the purposes of this section, a licensed retailer shall be responsible for determining that the amount of cannabis concentrates found in manufactured cannabis products sold to customers comply with the requirements of this section.

Changes were made to sections 5724, 5718, 5719, and 5723 regarding laboratory testing, as suggested by Cal NORML and others, to amend the costly, overly rigorous mandatory testing requirements that had been proposed.

More on the regs and making comments on them.

This page will be updated throughout the day as more analysis is done on the regulations.

Stay Informed! Join California NORML’s Email Alert List