SB 1294: Cannabis: state and local equity programs.

The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), an initiative measure approved as Proposition 64 at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, authorizes a person who obtains a state license under AUMA to engage in commercial adult-use cannabis activity pursuant to that license and applicable local ordinances. The Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA), among other things, consolidates the licensure and regulation of commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis activities.

This bill would enact the California Cannabis Equity Act of 2018. The bill would authorize the Bureau of Cannabis Control, upon request by a local jurisdiction, to provide technical assistance, as defined, to a local equity program that helps local equity applicants or local equity licensees. The bill would, upon appropriation of funds by the Legislature, authorize an eligible local jurisdiction to submit an application to the bureau for a grant to assist local equity applicants and local equity licensees through that local jurisdictions equity program. The bill would require the bureau to review an application, and to grant funding to an eligible local jurisdiction, based on specified factors. The bill would require an eligible local jurisdiction that receives grant funds pursuant to these provisions to use the grant funds to assist local equity licensees in that local jurisdiction to gain entry to, and to successfully operate in, the states regulated cannabis marketplace. The bill would require an eligible local jurisdiction that receives grant funds pursuant to these provisions to, on or before a specified date, submit an annual report to the bureau that contains specified information on the use of the grant funds and specified demographic data.

This bill would require, on or before July 1, 2019, the bureau to, among other things, publish approved local equity ordinances and model equity ordinances created by advocacy groups and experts, as specified, and to submit a report to the Legislature regarding the progress of local equity programs that receive funding pursuant to these provisions.

The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, an initiative measure, authorizes the Legislature to amend the act to further the purposes and intent of the act with a ²/₃ vote of the membership of both houses of the Legislature, except as provided.

This bill would declare that its provisions further the purposes and intent of the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act.