{"id":26252,"date":"2018-05-17T11:00:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2018\/05\/17\/californias-marijuana-distribution-regulations-force-applicants-to-report-themselves-to-feds\/"},"modified":"2018-05-17T12:57:12","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T20:57:12","slug":"californias-marijuana-distribution-regulations-force-applicants-to-report-themselves-to-feds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2018\/05\/17\/californias-marijuana-distribution-regulations-force-applicants-to-report-themselves-to-feds\/","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s Marijuana Distribution Regulations Force Applicants to Report Themselves To Feds"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

For those anxiously eyeing the uneven progress of California\u2019s adult use regulatory rollout, the sinking feeling that the legal supply chain isn\u2019t linking up quite right isn\u2019t a new sensation. When Bureau of Cannabis Control chief, Lori Ajax, publicly acknowledged<\/a> that \u201cat some point, we\u2019re going to see the supply depleted,\u201d the prevailing public perception about the gaps in California\u2019s legal cannabis system became an official fact: It\u2019s\u00a0still up in the air<\/a> how marijuana distribution will work in\u00a0California at this point.<\/p>\n

But now, you can add a few extra dashes of frustration (and a splash of conspiracy theory) to the cocktail of frustration around the developing marijuana distribution bottleneck: According to a report from Wired, an \u201capparent oversight\u201d has created a dangerous catch-22 for aspiring distributors that requires they\u00a0snitch out their own operations to the federal government during the application process for a state permit.<\/p>\n

From Wired<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Anyone hoping to commercially transport cannabis in California must apply for a Motor Carrier Permit (the only exception is for companies transporting their own goods). The catch is, beginning in 2016, the state\u2019s Department of Transportation began requiring any commercial vehicle seeking a Motor Carrier permit to obtain a federal DOT number. That involves explaining to the federales \u2014 who are not so cool with this marijuana thing \u2014 exactly how the vehicle will be used.<\/em><\/p>\n

As you might imagine, asking would-be distributors to inform the federal government that they intend to commit a federal crime on an ongoing basis is a pretty hard sell \u2014\u00a0nobody\u2019s volunteered yet. That means, for the time being, cannabis license holders who aren\u2019t already \u201clicensed motor carriers\u201d can only transport their own products without flagging the feds through the application process.<\/p>\n

However, if you\u2019re already a licensed motor carrier, then you already have a DOT number from the feds, which means you don\u2019t have to tell them anything about what you\u2019re transporting.<\/p>\n

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That means an existing armored transport company moving into the cannabis sphere doesn\u2019t have to explain anything and can simply add cannabis transport to their menu of commercial services.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If this licensing barrier is the result of an honest regulatory oversight, then ostensibly it will be corrected. However, the ongoing fiasco around the state\u2019s (allegedly accidental) \u201cmega-grow\u201d loophole<\/a> in cultivation licensing suggests these regulatory corrections aren\u2019t quick and painless.<\/p>\n

But because California\u2019s cannabis industry (and this reporter) can\u2019t resist a good conspiracy theory, there is, of course, a less probable but more tantalizing possibility: The state deliberately structured marijuana distribution licensing this way in order to favor existing licensed carriers.<\/p>\n

What would the legislature\u2019s motivation be for tipping the scales in favor of existing armored car services? Perhaps they assumed established companies would be easier to work into a regulatory framework than companies with origins in an outlaw industry, or maybe they engineered a supply chain bottleneck to streamline market stabilization and benefit a handful of companies with connections to the special interest groups that helped shape the regulations. Ultimately, it\u2019s fun to speculate, but there\u2019s no evidence this is anything more or less than another glaring error in Sacramento\u2019s sweeping approach to adult use legalization.<\/p>\n

And the negative impacts on legal cannabis distribution are the same regardless of the state\u2019s motivations or lack thereof: Irrespective of the many other obstacles facing the state\u2019s regulatory rollout, we\u2019re rapidly approaching a point where there simply won\u2019t be enough legal distributors to supply the legal market. The BCC says it\u2019s powerless to change anything \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s baked into the law and the legislature will have to fix it.<\/p>\n

How \u2014\u00a0and if \u2014\u00a0that issue is resolved depends on the political will of California\u2019s cannabis community. Because without a sustained demand for a solution, Sacramento can be trusted not to produce one.<\/p>\n

TELL US,<\/strong> is your cannabis provider facing marijuana distribution problems?<\/p>\n

The post California\u2019s Marijuana Distribution Regulations Force Applicants to Report Themselves To Feds<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: California\u2019s Marijuana Distribution Regulations Force Applicants to Report Themselves To Feds<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those anxiously eyeing the uneven progress of California\u2019s adult use regulatory rollout, the sinking feeling that the legal supply chain isn\u2019t linking up quite right isn\u2019t a new sensation. When Bureau of Cannabis Control chief, Lori Ajax, publicly acknowledged that \u201cat some point, we\u2019re going to see the supplyContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[223,148,50,332,170,417,4274,4275,163],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26253,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26252\/revisions\/26253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}