Then Covid struck, and everything was put on hold as the state focused most of its attention on managing the pandemic and dealing with wildfires.
One of the industry’s biggest problems is that the vast majority of legal pot companies have provisional licenses that are set to expire next year.
In a letter to legislative leaders, the California Cannabis Industry Association declared it could not support the bill, because it makes no provisions for cannabis operations in several counties that have their own regulatory schemes and licensing requirements.
In June, the state legislature approved Newsom’s budget proposal to give $100 million in grants to local governments to enable them to help cannabis businesses come into compliance with the CEQA, and get their permanent licenses.
But that won’t help companies that won’t be in compliance by the 2022 deadline.
Even if the bill is reworked, however, meeting CEQA’s requirements will still be an onerous and expensive challenge for many cannabis companies and growers, especially smaller ones.
Unregulated, the weed industry can be remarkably damaging to the environment—sucking up scarce water and spraying nasty pesticides all over the place, for example.
But the situation presents the same quandary as the state’s high tax burden does: it discourages the legal pot trade, which in turn encourages the black market to keep operating.