California lawmakers reach 11th-hour deal to regulate medical marijuana

SACRAMENTO — With California voters likely to consider legalizing recreational marijuana use next year, lawmakers were racing to regulate and rein in the state's free-wheeling medical marijuana industry ahead of a legislative deadline.

The Legislature was expected to vote Friday on a package of bills that would create the first statewide licensing and operating rules for pot growers and retail weed outlets since the state became the first to legalize medical marijuana in 1996.

"After 20 years, we have an agreement on a comprehensive regulatory regime and that is historic," said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, the lead author of the main Assembly bill. "We knew it had to be done this year."

Details on the regulatory framework, which seeks to manage medical marijuana from seed to smoke, still were sketchy as Senate and Assembly committees prepared to take up the package Friday afternoon so it could get to the floors of the two chambers later in the day before lawmakers depart for the year.

Other major pieces of legislation awaiting legislative action Friday included right-to-die legislation, a landmark climate change bill that Gov. Jerry Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon were forced to scale back this week, and dozens of other bills.

On the marijuana compromise, co-sponsors and interest groups said they were waiting to see the final language negotiated by the governor's staff and legislative leaders.

But whatever emerges would not have an immediate impact on the existing medical marijuana landscape because the licensing provisions would not take effect until 2018, said Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association.

Pot dispensaries already licensed by local governments would eventually have to comply with the product tracking, advertising, criminal background check and job training provisions required for a state license, but they could continue to operate and buy marijuana from unlicensed farmers until then, Bradley said.

The near-certainty that one or more initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana will be on the 2016 ballot has put pressure on lawmakers to get the state's medical marijuana house in order before then. The U.S. Department of Justice has said it does not plan to raid medical marijuana sites or interfere in recreational pot sales as long as states have solid regulatory schemes in place.

The authors of legislation that had been stalled in the Senate and Assembly in the closing days of the legislative session said the package now under consideration would establish a Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation to oversee every aspect of the industry, from pot farms and medical clinics to product safety labs and retail distribution.

The office charged with overseeing the new standards will be housed within the California Department of Consumer Affairs. But the Department of Food and Agriculture and the Department of Public Health will have prominent roles in their implementation and enforcement.

All three bills — Bonta's AB266, SB643 by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and AB243 by Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg — must pass for any of them to reach Brown's desk.

The governor has expressed skepticism over the wisdom of legalizing recreational marijuana use, but his office has been involved in crafting a compromise on medical marijuana he would be willing to sign since late August.