Pubdate: Mon, 12 Dec 2016
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2016 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Lisa M. Krieger

EXPERTS: CALIFORNIA'S MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION COULD BE DELAYED

SANTA ROSA - Amid the euphoria of this weekend's famed Emerald Cup
weed fest, there was this creeping buzzkill: the glacial rollout of
legalization.

Right when it seems like "The Great Pot Moment" is upon us, it turns
out there are a lot of really tough regulatory issues to resolve
first, according to government and industry experts who sketched out
all the thorny challenges at the two-day conference, competition and
harvest celebration at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

And implementation of commercialization could be delayed a year until
2019, said insiders.

Proposition 64, approved by voters in November, promised that, by Jan.
1, 2018, a recreational smoker could stroll into a licensed store to
buy a favorite strain of White Widow or OJ Kush. A medical marijuana
law, the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act, is moving along a
similar timeline.

For the 23,000 cannabis aficionados at the festival, even that wait
seems unreasonably long, considering people have been weaving hemp
into loincloths for thousands of years.

What's the challenge? Just as the prohibition on cannabis was
complicated, so is the process of ending it, experts said.
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