State Senate passes bill to regulate medical marijuana industry

The state Senate on Thursday passed a North Coast lawmaker’s sweeping legislation aimed at better regulating the medical marijuana industry, which has been plagued by ineffective, confusing and conflicting rules since California voters legalized pot for medical use nearly 20 years ago.

The Medical Marijuana Public Safety and Environmental Protection Act, authored by state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, now moves on to the Assembly.

It was one of three pot-regulating bills to pass in the Assembly and Senate in the past two days, a sign that most legislators are ready to tackle problems stemming from the largely unregulated industry.

“I do think this is the year to take action and follow through with the promise that was made to Californians 20 years ago. That promise was to put in rules and regulations to protect our community and our environment and help this multibillion-dollar industry grow in the years to come,” McGuire said.

His proposal, Senate Bill 643, aims to create a cohesive and enforceable framework for governing the medical pot industry, from its taxation to its environmental impacts.

The other two bills were passed in the state Assembly and will next move to the Senate. They include Healdsburg Assemblyman Jim Wood’s Marijuana Watershed Protection Act, AB 243, approved Wednesday; and AB 266, co-authored by Assembly members Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, Ken Cooley D-Rancho Cordova and Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, D-Los Angeles, approved Thursday.

Law enforcement officials and cannabis advocates alike welcomed the progress toward getting a regulatory handle on the state’s marijuana industry, especially with voters widely expected to legalize the drug for recreational uses next year.

“While I certainly don’t support commercializing recreational marijuana, I do support good stringent environmental laws and closing the loop on unscrupulous doctors who are in it only for the money,” Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said.

“It looks good now for some sort of compromise bill to be passed by both houses,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

McGuire said he expects to meet with the authors of the Assembly bills in the coming weeks to discuss their proposed legislation.

The bills address a long list of issues, including public safety and the environment. McGuire’s includes the framework for overseeing licensing, product safety, marketing, labeling, taxing, transporting, resale, zoning, labor rules and more.

All seek to limit the damage that some outlaw growers have inflicted on the environment by clear-cutting forests, diverting and polluting streams and poisoning wildlife.

McGuire’s legislation includes measures allowing local and state agencies to charge regulatory fees to help fund law enforcement efforts to crack down on growers who violate criminal and environmental laws, he said.

“We are under-resourced,” he said.

McGuire said the “rogue” growers who are causing the problems are a minority in the cannabis-cultivating community. The others are working with lawmakers to create regulations that work for everyone, he said.

“We’re working with those mom-and-pop growers that want to comply with rules and regulations. They’re very proactive,” McGuire said.

You can reach Staff Writer Glenda Anderson at 462-6473 or glenda.anderson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MendoReporter