By: Bridget Hennessey, Vice President Government Relations, Weedmaps
Californians want more and better access to cannabis, as well as the revenue that comes from its legal sale.
Voters thought they were getting that when Proposition 64’s passage in 2016 ushered in a legal and regulated adult-use cannabis market throughout the state. So it’s surprising that today, about 75% of California cities and counties still ban the sale of cannabis.
That’s because Proposition 64 set up a dual licensing structure, whereby cannabis may be legal in the state, but local governments can still prohibit its sale. As a result, California’s geography is comprised of wide swaths of cannabis desserts, where access to essential medicine is near-impossible. For so many Californians — multiple sclerosis patients; veterans with PTSD; members of the transgender community suffering debilitating anxiety and enervating postoperative pain; and mothers, who rely on specific cannabinoid oil to continue the impactful gains in their autistic child’s health — cannabis desserts mean driving ridiculously long distances or going without crucial, legal medicine.
What shortsighted local politicians have bungled, voters in 36 California cities and counties can course-correct on November 3rd. Nearly 40 cannabis-related measures are up for local voters to consider. But the intensity of other 2020 election issues have relegated them to “down-ballot” talking points. Individually, these initiatives will, for the most part, establish or strengthen local, legal cannabis markets. But taken together, they bring the Golden State closer to its potential (perceived or otherwise) as the world’s largest legal cannabis market.
Ballot initiatives in communities across California — ranging from Yountville and Costa Mesa to La Habra and Carson aim to flip the jurisdictions from ‘dry” to “buy.” Licensing storefront dispensaries and delivery services is the logical first step. Other efforts, in jurisdictions like Ventura and Fairfield, impose regulatory changes, such as taxes on cannabis businesses, initiating a cultivation tax on square footage, and diversifying the kind of licenses for cannabis businesses. Measures like these are, in many cases, the pretext for introducing legal businesses into the many cannabis deserts of California.
Other examples include Calaveras County, where voters will decide whether to switch from a weight-based tax to a square footage-based tax, which would likely lower the price of cannabis for the consumer and the retailer that’s selling it. The city of Escondido will vote on the Cannabis Activity Zoning Ordinance initiative, allowing up to four retail sales facilities, cannabis cultivation, and product manufacturing. Finally, in California’s capital, Sacramento’s City Council is adopting an ordinance that would add an additional 10 dispensaries to the city’s retail offerings.
Local governments are wise to embrace the potential that cannabis sales have to both save money (less law enforcement efforts that do little to curb real crime, for example); and generate tax revenue for community budgets, especially as the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is reflected on local budgets.
The fate of many of these initiatives is likely to hang in the balance during weeks of vote counting by local elections authorities. But the sheer number of local initiatives to allow or increase access to adult-use cannabis is evidence of the demand for it in California. Many of these measures are carried by grassroots organizers — individuals and small groups of neighbors who decided that NIMBY policymakers weren’t making policy that reflected the values of their constituency or the will of their voters that overwhelmingly supported Prop 64. This should be a wake-up call to local legislators everywhere.
It’s doubtful that we will know election results on Tuesday night. But one victory will be easy to call. Civic engagement and voter involvement is how Californians get what they have been demanding for years: better and more access to legal cannabis, cost savings for local communities, and needed revenue for important social programs.
