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Cal NORML / ASA Lobby Day Coming to Sacramento on Monday, May 8
All Californians are invited to attend the California NORML/Americans for Safe Access Citizen Lobby Day on Monday, May 8 in Sacramento. The event will bring supporters from across the state to meet with their state representatives and make our voices heard on pending legislation affecting the rights of cannabis consumers in California.
Past lobby days have helped bring about reforms such as employment rights for cannabis consumers, medical rights for organ transplant and pain patients who use medical cannabis, and cannabis tax reform, among other ongoing issues.
Lobby Day attendees will meet in the morning at the Capitol Event Center, where they will learn about pending bills and get lobbying tips. In the afternoon, participants will meet with lawmakers or their staffers. The day will end with an afterparty and reception on the patio at Cafeteria 15L.
The bills on which we expect to be lobbying are:
Human Rights
SB 302 (Stern) would extend Ryan’s Law by requiring health-care facilities to allow (non-inhaled) use of medical cannabis by all patients with chronic diseases, instead of just terminal illnesses.
SB 700 (Bradford) would build on last year’s bill AB 2188, the Employment Rights for Cannabis Consumers law, by barring employers from asking job applicants about their past cannabis use.
Supporting the Legal Cannabis Industry
AB 374 (Haney) and SB 285 (Allen) would allow the sale of fresh food and beverages at consumption rooms. The Haney bill would also let them host paid entertainment and events. These bills would help support the legal cannabis industry as well as the rights of cannabis consumers to enjoy each others’ company in a bar-like or concert-like setting.
AB 1111 (Pellerin) would enable small licensed cannabis producers to vend their products at a limited number of licensed, locally approved cannabis events annually.
SB 508 (Laird) would cut duplicative CEQA regulations that are delaying cannabis licensing, in particular the critical and timely transition from temporary to permanent licenses.
AB 420 (Aguiar-Curry) would allow a cannabis licensee to manufacture, distribute, or sell products that contain industrial hemp.
Equity and Fair Taxation
SB 512 (Bradford) would end double taxation of cannabis by excluding excise and local taxes from the sales tax.
SB 51 (Bradford) would allow the extension of provisional licenses for equity applicants for up to five years, and to continue issuing equity provisional retail licenses indefinitely.
AB 1565 (Jones-Sawyer) would require the disbursement of $15,000,000 for the 2028–29 fiscal year and every fiscal year thereafter to support equity applicants.
Consumer Safety
AB 1610 (Jones-Sawyer) – would protect cannabis consumers and the legal cannabis market by ensuring products are accurately labeled, and provide greater transparency and oversight in product testing and recalls. It would mandate labs to conduct blind proficiency tests of products to ensure results are consistent; create standard procedures for the randomized testing of retail products; require any product recall to be publicly reported to consumers online; and mandate all licensed labs to be annually audited by the Department of Cannabis Control.
SB 540 (Laird) would require the creation and dissemination of an informational brochure to educate new users on cannabis risks and effects. We support the bill, and have requested adding high-dosage warnings to the bill, including cannabis doctors and advocates in the writing of the brochure, making it more available to customers, and other changes.
AB 1207 (Irwin) is aimed at removing products attractive to children from the cannabis market. It has been amended to fix concerning provisions about the use of flavorings in edibles and vapes, but would ban the use of a person’s image, such as a celebrity endorser, on cannabis products. We would like to see it further amended.
Enforcement
In order to support the legal cannabis industry and in the interest of public safety, we are not opposed to enforcement against the type of large, unlicensed cannabis operators that are often also guilty of human rights and environmental laws. However, we are watchdogging these laws to ensure that they are not applied against small personal or medical grows, or small businesses that cannot afford licensure. It is generally better to lower barriers to licensure rather than spend endless dollars in enforcement.
SB 820 (Alvarado-Gil) would give local governments broad authority to seize property and vehicles at illegal grow sites. The author has accepted Cal NORML’s proposed amendment raising the threshold for enforcement from 50 to 1,000 plants. We would like to see further changes regarding the process for noticing and appealing, to conform with existing forfeiture law.
SB 753 (Caballero) would felonize 50-plant cannabis gardens if water theft or pollution is committed. We would like to see that plant threshold raised, and better definitions in the bill.
SCHEDULE
MORNING
Capitol Event Center – 1020 11th St. (between J and K Streets)
10 AM – 12 PM; doors open at 9:15
Gather for training/legislative overview; pick up your afternoon appointment information
LUNCH BREAK (on your own)
AFTERNOON
1 PM – 5 PM
Attendees will go to the Capitol for appointments with your elected representatives or their staffs.
EVENING
Afterparty / Reception
5 PM – 7 PM
Cafeteria 15L
