California's latest attempt to save the legal Cannabis market just failed
California’s dream of selling cannabis legally across the country has gone up in smoke.
On Tuesday, state Attorney General Rob Bonta declared that allowing legal cannabis companies to export marijuana across state lines would result in “significant legal risk to the State of California.” The move effectively halts California’s attempt to open up interstate sales, which many had hoped could provide a much-needed boost to the state’s legal market.
Currently, California law only permits cannabis companies to sell their products within the state, because cannabis is illegal under federal law. Last year, the state government passed a law that would have created a pathway for interstate sales — but only if either the federal government explicitly condoned such sales, or the state attorney general issued a legal opinion declaring that allowing interstate commerce would not create a legal risk for the state or its employees. Bonta’s Tuesday letter, which was first reported by Marijuana Moment, has effectively quashed that effort.
Selling cannabis to other states has long been a dream of California’s legal industry. Both regulators and business owners hoped that selling their pot to other states would prop up the struggling industry, which is currently facing declining tax revenue and hundreds of business failures.
David Hafner, a spokesperson for the Department of Cannabis Control, said in an emailed statement to SFGATE that the agency is continuing to pursue the “visionary spirit” of the interstate commerce attempt but did not specify how the agency would move forward.
“We appreciate the Attorney General’s conclusion that the arguments supporting interstate agreements are ‘strong.’ Unfortunately, even strong arguments cannot put novel questions beyond all debate. If you are looking for certainty, you will not find it in cannabis,” Hafner wrote in an email.
Bonta’s opinion was the likely end of a multi-year attempt by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office to legalize interstate commerce. The governor signed Senate Bill 1326 in September of 2022. It went into effect on Jan. 1, 2023, and within a month, the DCC asked Bonta’s office for a green light on interstate sales, arguing in an eight-page letter that existing case and constitutional law would shield the state from legal risk.
Bonta, who has long been a supporter of the state’s industry, called the situation “highly unusual” in his Tuesday opinion, writing that his office would normally not answer such a request. In his letter, Bonta did agree with the DCC that there are “strong arguments” for California being on safe ground in permitting interstate sales. Ultimately, however, he found there would still be a possibility of the federal government suing the state if it allowed such sales to proceed.
“We are not in a position to make political or economic predictions about whether the United States or another party would be likely to sue,” Bonta’s opinion stated.
Hafner, the DCC spokesperson, said that California will continue in its fight to allow the legal sale of cannabis across state lines.
“California has long been at the forefront of efforts to legalize and regulate cannabis, even in the face of legal and political uncertainty. We will continue—under Governor Newsom’s leadership—to search for ways to bring the cannabis industry market into a regulated framework that protects the public,” Hafner said in the emailed statement.
