Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday gave cities and counties more time to develop local regulations on the commercial growing of medical marijuana, amid concern that a March 1 deadline had many rushing to ban cultivation.
Last year, Brown signed into law a system that will regulate, license and tax those who grow and sell medical cannabis. But a mistake in the bill’s drafting set a March 1 deadline for cities to either adopt stronger rules or face living with the state restrictions that allow cultivation.
As a result, nearly 100 cities have banned commercial cultivation, the sale of marijuana or both -- mostly in recent months -- according to industry officials.
Among those that have enacted cultivation bans are Burbank, Pasadena, Thousand Oaks, Yorba Linda, Long Beach and Newport Beach. Some counties have also banned cultivation.
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