Editor's Note: This article's actual headline is "Bay Area senator proposes regulating medical marijuana industry from cultivation to consumption," but the bill was actually introduced in February and amended in the Senate earlier this month. The big news is that, as this article reports, the bill is headed for a hearing Wednesday in the Senate's Governance and Finance Committee.
State Sen. Mike McGuire has introduced a sweeping bill that would legalize and regulate the medical marijuana industry from cultivation to consumption and all the steps in between.
The bill, SB 643, passed out of the state Senate's Business and Professions Committee on April 20 and will receive a hearing in the Senate's Governance and Finance Committee on Wednesday.
The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and subsequent state legislation exempted qualified medical patients and their caregivers from state criminal sanctions related to possession, cultivation and transportation of limited amounts of marijuana. Nevertheless, a lack of statewide regulation has resulted in uncertainty about the legality of some medical marijuana cultivation and distribution activities.
