AB266

Can we talk about AB266 and what it means for the patients? Does any one actually understand what it all means and is it going to hurt the patients that are at the bottom? Is it going to be harder to obtain affordable meds? Are the only legitimate dispensaries going to be rich corporations that only care about making money? I don't know can someone break it down for me? I don't know if it's already been posted and talked about but I can't find any info.. also would it actually end up becoming a non competitive market? I know there will always be other means of obtaining meds but talking about the legitimate aspect of it.. please thank you and if you can refer me to more info as well that'd be great.

Also was wondering if it will over ride proposition 215?

http://p.eastbayexpress.com/media/pdf/ab_266_9-11-15_amended_version.pdf found the official document. At page 14 they start talking about what the law actually will do.

Thank you, it's a lot to read I'll be breaking it down more later

From what I read it doesn't effect us patients. But if you purchase your medicine from a Collective expect to pay more due to tax's that the state, county, and city will impose. Also the extra cost of license's, testing, other things they are requiring will make the cost go up even that much more. Also all current Collectives will be phased out after all the licenses are issued. So if the place you go to now doesn't get approved for a license to dispense they will close. It makes deliveries OK too.

100sq ft of personal cultivation per patient. Can no longer stack recs at a house unless the people with the recs live there. The only stacking you can do for people who do not live on the property are if you are a primary caregiver and have state issued caregiver cards, which you can stack up to 5 for a total of 500 sq ft of canopy either indoor or outdoor.

There will be no more patient-vendors once the licenses take effect (IF they take effect, they may not ever get that chance). If you want to be a vendor you'll need to get a local permit and then a state license.

captkillao said:

From what I read it doesn't effect us patients. But if you purchase your medicine from a Collective expect to pay more due to tax's that the state, county, and city will impose. Also the extra cost of license's, testing, other things they are requiring will make the cost go up even that much more. Also all current Collectives will be phased out after all the licenses are issued. So if the place you go to now doesn't get approved for a license to dispense they will close. It makes deliveries OK too.

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There is no state tax aside from normal sales tax. But yes, local municipalities can impose their own taxes. The cost of licenses will be insignificant however all product will go through distributors from the alcohol industry who will impose a fee of 5% of the wholesale cost. The lab testing fees will be significant and will be paid for by growers/manufacturers.

Dispensaries, growers, manufacturers will no longer be obligated to run under a collective or cooperative model, they can be LLC's or even publicly traded companies.

These laws give local municipalities mandates to either permit or ban medical cannabis businesses. So expect a ton of local ordinances to be authored in the next 2 years. The other side to this is that if a state wide ballot initiative passes it can eliminate the undesirable parts of this law so they never actually go into effect.

It also officially declares cannabis officially an agricultural product in the state of California. I'm not clear on all the implications of that but it should allow for state wide safety standards to be set.

As I read it, AB266, AB246 and SB643 all need to be passed for any of them to be valid. The sticking point for me is the continued ability of cities and counties to ban growing or dispensaries. Voting to legalize recreational cannabis just for possession and use is not good enough, when you must travel outside the city or county to get your medication. One can make their own beer and wine, so why not cannabis? I've written to Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) about that provision in his SB643 being a non-starter. As I see it, we might as well keep the current status.

topcat said:

As I read it, AB266, AB246 and SB643 all need to be passed for any of them to be valid. The sticking point for me is the continued ability of cities and counties to ban growing or dispensaries. Voting to legalize recreational cannabis just for possession and use is not good enough, when you must travel outside the city or county to get your medication. One can make their own beer and wine, so why not cannabis? I've written to Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg) about that provision in his SB643 being a non-starter. As I see it, we might as well keep the current status.

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They've all passed, they need to be signed, which will happen likely next week.

Well we aren't going to keep our current status. The only realistic hope we have of that would be if DPA can get their language on the ballot.

I'm glad you're here to explain all this, as I don't have the patience. I meant that I'd vote against legalization, but that wouldn't be wise, now that I think of it. So, does all this legislation trump Prop. 215? What is DPA?

topcat said:

I'm glad you're here to explain all this, as I don't have the patience. I meant that I'd vote against legalization, but that wouldn't be wise, now that I think of it. So, does all this legislation trump Prop. 215? What is DPA?

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A ballot initiative always trumps a law passed by state congress, so prop 215 will trump these bills just passed. The language in these assembly/senate bills about doctors will likely end up with a court challenge if the state acts on them because of prop 215 conflicts. Hard to say how a ruling on that would turn out.

The DPA is the Drug Policy Alliance. The DPA working with MPP (Marijuana Policy Project) are the only groups that have successfully passed state wide adult use legalization laws. DPA has already authored language for the state of California and MPP has the money to get legalization on the ballot. They were working with ReformCA to form a coalition to get legalization on the ballot however the coalition was corrupted by special interests and broke apart.

It is now unclear if that DPA legalization language will make it on the ballot. There are so many interest groups with their own ballot initiatives right now fighting each other it's unclear if any of them will make the ballot. Cannabis political action groups in California are their own worst enemy. They are more concerned with fighting each other than passing laws. It may fuck us out of legalization in 2016. We shall see.

Thank you for the insight Dan. I like the current status i just wish we had more protection from federal government and all that crap. I also like being able to renew my recommendation when the time comes. I don't want it to be harder to get it. Why can't we just keep what we have and improve it!?! lol shett

So the governor signs these 3 bills. An article by Lisa Leff, Associated Press claims that "...the bills preserve the right of individuals to grow small amounts of medical marijuana for personal use..." I think that's incorrect, or is it? Do cities/counties still have the right to ban growing now that these bills have been signed?