While many states have already passed hemp laws and submitted their plans to the USDA for approval, California is lagging behind and hasn’t yet passed a law to bring the state’s hemp laws in line with the 2018 Farm Act. Two bills await the lawmakers once the summer recess ends and business resumes on Monday next week.
The first bill focusses on hemp cultivation. This bill is expected to compel the California Department of Agriculture to submit its hemp cultivation plan to the USDA by January 31 next year.
However, Sean Donahoe, an Oakland-based marijuana consultant, says that the lawmakers should scrutinize this draft law carefully because some of its proposals are onerous. For example, the bill proposes that research into hemp cultivation and processing should only be done by the University of California or California State University. This would eliminate private entities from doing any hemp research.
Donahoe says that such a provision is unnecessary if the primary objective of the hemp cultivation law is to align state law with federal hemp laws. In his view, the state shouldn’t create such complex bureaucratic systems in its laws if it wants the hemp industry to thrive in the country’s largest agricultural state.
The second bill that lawmakers will consider has to do with the way products, such as CBD, derived from hemp will be regulated.
The Senate Health Committee debated and passed this bill but it will still need to go through another committee before the matter comes up for a vote on the floor of the state senate. The Assembly has already cleared this bill, so senate approval will mean it goes to Gov. Newsom’s desk.
In this bill, CBD is recognized as an ingredient that can be used in cosmetics, beverages and foods. This change is a major reversal from the existing law which outlawed the use of CBD in beverages, cosmetics and foods even if many manufacturers defied the law and included CBD in their products.
This proposed law is in sharp contrast to the position of the FDA on CBD, but the marijuana industry in California as well as the governor, are in agreement that it is necessary. This means that the state is on course to join the others which have passed laws allowing CBD to be used as an ingredient, at least within their borders.
The legislators in both Houses have up to the middle of September to pass the laws before them and send them to the governor for signing. Hemp industry watchers anticipate that industry actors like Canopy Rivers Inc. (TSX.V: RIV) (OTC: CNPOF) and Earth Science Tech Inc. (OTCQB: ETST) will examine the bills closely to ascertain that the provisions therein will not encumber the industry.
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