California’s Final Cannabis Rules: What You Need to Know

By Austin Schoonmaker | February 2, 2019

On January 16, California made history when it made the final approval of the states permanent commercial cannabis regulations. Now, thousands of businesses involved within the cannabis industry must follow these final rules. So how do these final regulations affect you? Let’s dive in.

Child-resistant packaging

Harder to open packages and more plastic to trash our environment? California doesn’t care. If you want legal weed, it’s going to have to be difficult for children to access. The final rules mandate that all products must be packaged in child-resistant packaging. This includes, at the minimum, a large, opaque $1 ziplock “exit”  bag that will contain the products you purchase at a dispensary. By 2020, all individual cannabis product packages will be required to come in child-resistant packaging, effectively doing away with exit bags.

Delivery for everyone

This statewide delivery rule exists to ensure that all Californias can legally obtain taxed and tested cannabis even if they reside in a town where it is banned. This statewide delivery code is the only of its kind among the ten states that have legalized recreational marijuana. This will be highly beneficial in terms of increasing competition among delivery services, trickling down to the consumer in the form of better prices and a greater selection of products

Lab testing standards will remain strict

Going forward, consumers can expect some of the purest and cleanest cannabis ever on the market thanks to stringent testing standards that will continue to remain in effect. These rules include testing for heavy metals and toxins, a problem that has plagued brands that sell disposable vaporizer cartridges and cannabis oils. These rules will also mandate that the amount of THC found in cannabis products is properly measured and labeled, to better highlight potency.

Cash is still king

Dispensaries will continue to be cash only, as there are still no banking fixes in the final state regulations. Since the national banking system is controlled by the US Treasury, and cannabis remain illegal at the federal level, cash-only transactions will remain in place.