California Medical Marijuana Regulations Might Reflect‏ Laws For Booze

[+Malamute]

Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 20 Aug 2015
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/LDxG99Oh
Copyright: 2015 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Jeremy B. White

CALIFORNIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA REGULATIONS MIGHT REFLECT LAWS FOR BOOZE

Pushing hard to at last regulate California's free-for-all medical
marijuana industry, state lawmakers are wrestling with how a tightly
regulated cannabis market would work.

Increasingly, the answer looks to be a lot like the market for alcohol.

Long-standing alcohol laws rigidly separate producers, distributors
and vendors. The decades-old "tied-house" formula was conceived
largely as an antidote to the gangsterism of Prohibition, seeking to
disrupt the liquor monopolies organized crime groups had established.

If Assembly Bill 266 passes - as looks more likely than with any
previous attempt, given the support of law enforcement, cities and
the large majority of Assembly members who voted it off the floor - a
similar approach could apply to medical cannabis.

At stake is the future of a medical cannabis market estimated to be
worth more than $1.2 billion in 2014, from which players profit to
which strains of cannabis land in front of consumers. Cannabis
vendors and farmers, law enforcement and organized labor have all
asserted their vision of what it should look like and whether alcohol
laws offer a good model.

"This is a brand-new industry, so you don't know how it's going to
develop," said Barry Broad, a lobbyist representing the California
Teamsters, who have been advocating the multitier model. "There's no
question that alcohol is more heavily regulated than other products,
and marijuana deservedly should be regulated as well."

Under the current version of the bill, farmers who cultivate or sell
cannabis could not transport it to dispensaries themselves. The
distribution and transportation would fall to entities like the
Teamsters drivers Broad represents. They would get licenses
unavailable to growers or vendors.

Public safety provides part of the justification. Law enforcement
officials say having additional sets of eyes on the cannabis would
make it tougher to divert it to the black market. The middlemen
distributors would essentially serve as a check on the cultivators,
ensuring their product remains in legitimate channels.

"It's important to separate the cultivation, the processing, the
distribution or sales for the accountability piece," said California
Police Chiefs Association President David Bejarano, who is also chief
of the Chula Vista Police Department. "It would be difficult ensuring
it doesn't go to the black market if it's all clumped together."

The other argument for the multitiered system is an economic one. The
purpose of scattering the process among multiple license holders,
Broad said, is to ensure that large-scale cannabis enterprises don't
take over the fledgling marketplace.

"What could happen is a dominant market player could take control of
the entire market and freeze out competitors," Broad said, calling
the multitiered model "a mechanism for ensuring everyone gets their
access to the market."

Other provisions in AB 266 seek to prevent large-scale operations
from monopolizing the market. Companies that hold both cultivating
and dispensing licenses would face limits on how many stores they can
run and how many acres of land or square feet of indoor space they
can have planted.

But members of the increasingly assertive cannabis industry lobby
warn the system could produce some of the same issues regularly
spotlighted by small-scale alcohol makers, particularly that it gives
distributors too much power.

"We're very concerned about basically mandating the distribution
model for the entire state, because what that will do is allow a few
organizations to control the price structure for the entire state,
kind of like the exact same way the spirit distributors do it now,"
said Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis
Industry Association.

Critics also complain of overly complex rules and frequent exceptions
carved out with the help of lobbyists for various alcohol entities.
Alcohol suppliers are now allowed to own hotels and theme parks or to
advertise at some sports venues, for example. Wineries and craft
breweries can sell their products on premises.

"The current alcohol scheme we have has been chipped away at from the
first day," Bradley said.

Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation allowing beer
manufacturers to sell their products at farmers markets and at
private events on their premises. This year, small liquor
distilleries are seeking something similar, backing legislation
enabling them to sell alcohol during on-site tastings and to have
ownership stakes in restaurants.

California Artisanal Distillers Guild executive director Cris Steller
said the liquor bill, which was revived after first faltering in a
key alcohol-regulating committee, would disrupt distributors' control
over which products make it onto liquor store shelves.

"There's only so much ability to give up space to smaller brands that
don't have the same brand recognition," Steller said. "They might
have the quality, but they don't have the name recognition with the
public, so the distributors go with larger brands that have much
larger advertising budgets and have that ability to influence the market."

That same dynamic could recur with cannabis, warned Steve DeAngelo,
executive director of the Oakland-based Harborside Health Center,
which the federal government has sought to shut down.

"It would give a huge amount of branding and marketing power over to
the distributors," DeAngelo said. "Supply and demand is going to
dictate that the distributors will have much more economic power than
the farmers would."

Many cannabis farmers see the issue differently. Giving distributors
a greater role would minimize the possibility that "a retailer can
fill their shelves with only their product (and) can push anyone else
out of the market," said Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the
Emerald Growers Association.

It would also give small-scale growers logistical assistance, Allen said.

"Getting cannabis from the far north in Siskiyou County to the far
south in San Diego County is virtually impossible," Allen said, but
"an alcoholic beverage can get from a producer to a distributor to a
retailer anywhere in the state in two days."

[sidebar]

What are tied-house laws?

"Tied-house laws" are rules that prevent different tiers of the
alcohol industry - manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers - from
being tied to one another.

They were conceived largely as an antidote to the gangsterism of
Prohibition, seeking to disrupt the liquor monopolies organized crime
groups had established.

They cover both ownership and marketing. A beer or wine maker
generally can't also own the place where their product is sold,
though over the years exceptions have proliferated.

[t-pain]

Long-standing alcohol laws rigidly separate producers, distributors

and vendors. The decades-old "tied-house" formula was conceived

largely as an antidote to the gangsterism of Prohibition, seeking to

disrupt the liquor monopolies organized crime groups had established.

i dont have a problem with THIS model seperating producers distributors and vendors, as long as it protects craft beer.

 

small farmers should be able to grow, process and sell. under 1ton a year or something, how about that? like the craft beers. then if they want they can apply for a larger license. just like craft beers that go national.