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The 2024 Oregon legislative session kicked off yesterday. It’s a brief session this yr, with adjournment sine die set for March 10. No matter hasn’t handed by that day will likely be scuttled to 2025, or fade to black solely.
This yr, now we have however one hashish invoice to cowl– except you rely HB 4093, which might require at the very least one Oregon Liquor and Hashish Fee (OLCC) commissioner to have a public well being background. This stuffy proposal has been batted round in prior classes however didn’t change into regulation.
Anyway, the hashish invoice for 2024 is HB 4121. It’s topically broad. HB 4121 was drafted by legislative hashish guru Rob Bovett, who not works for the counties however continues to carry out a worthwhile public service in drafting Oregon’s hashish legal guidelines, as he has since without end. Rob tells me his marching orders for 2024 had been to submit one thing noncontroversial, bipartisan and bi-cameral. HB 4093 is mostly that (see Rob’s testimony right here).
Why does the invoice should be noncontroversial, and so forth.? I defined in my annual “State of the State” publish in December that:
The primary huge process for CIAO [Oregon’s newly consolidated cannabis trade group] ought to come up within the 2024 legislative session. The Oregon legislature appears much less eager on coping with hashish points over the previous few classes, than traditionally. Given collateral injury to OCA from the La Mota scandal and all the oxygen being taken up by Measure 110 scrutiny, CIAO may have its work reduce out come February.
Sure, Measure 110 dialogue round drug recriminalization goes to dominate this session, alongside housing points. Hashish is both an afterthought or a 3rd rail, relying on who you ask. With that temporary orientation, beneath is what HB 4121 would do.
Enforcement collaboration (Sections 1 to six)
In 2021, Oregon handed a regulation often called HB 3000. I defined on the time that HB 3000 “did 1,000,000 issues.” HB 4121 would carry a number of of them ahead, together with: 1) authorizing collaborative mapping of develop websites to tell regulation enforcement the place licensed develop websites are situated; 2) setting guidelines to tell apart marijuana from hemp; 3) granting the Oregon Division of Agriculture (ODA) authority to order destruction of vegetation “presumptively thought of to be marijuana” below the aforesaid guidelines; 4) permitting ODA and OLCC to collaboratively examine hemp crops, alongside the Nationwide Guard if the Governor so orders. I’m advised the Southern Oregon sheriffs want to see these provisions cross, particularly.
Hemp product registration and labeling (Sections 7 to 14)
This subject additionally arises out of HB 3000, by means of a process pressure. And it’s a rehash of final yr’s HB 3049, which was waylaid and died within the methods and means committee (my protection right here).
These sections create a registration system and labeling requirements for hemp merchandise containing cannabinoids which can be supposed for human or animal consumption. To be clear, we’re speaking about merchandise that adults in Oregon may purchase in locations like fuel stations and grocery shops. Registration wouldn’t be required for fiber, grain merchandise or topical merchandise.
Some makers of hemp-derived cannabinoids are going to help these sections, whereas others will likely be strongly opposed. The FDA isn’t imposing the sort of labeling and sure firms might danger shedding shelf area at Complete Meals and elsewhere if pressured to elaborate on the composition of sure merchandise.
Marijuana license caps and moratorium (sections 15 to twenty)
It is a huge deal! And fascinating. Oregon has been limping together with short-term licensing “pauses” and moratoria for nearly six years. The newest of those got here by way of HB 4016, which expanded a marijuana licensing moratorium to all licensing varieties besides testing labs; and which stays in impact till March 31 of this yr.
Trade is now proposing to instate a everlasting, exhausting cap on the variety of licenses, whereas grandfathering anybody already within the system. The caps could be tied to inhabitants metrics, as follows:
For manufacturing and retail licenses, “not multiple lively license per 7,500 residents within the state who’re 21 years of age or older.”
For processor and wholesaler licenses, “not multiple lively license per 12,500 residents within the state who’re 21 years or older.”
By my math, if this language holds Oregon wouldn’t subject new hashish licenses in most or all of those classes, without end. For instance: now we have roughly 2,429,348 Oregonians 21 years of age. This implies the cap on retail licenses going ahead could be 324. We at present have 863 of them.
It’s value noting that OLCC at present caps the variety of liquor shops on a inhabitants schedule. For liquor gross sales, I’m advised it’s 12,000 folks per retailer. That is an imperfect analogue for marijuana, as a result of not like with liquor, OLCC doesn’t personal the product and promote it by means of to retail. Additionally, on the liquor facet, the “cap” is applied below a seemingly discretionary administrative rule. However the liquor regime might be the place the notion got here from.
Precisely how the hashish trade got here up with these ratios is a narrative for one more day. Let’s see if Oregon lastly caps licenses as soon as and for all. If it occurs, OLCC might lastly should get into rulemaking round license reassignment concepting. Alternatively, if this session implodes attributable to one other Republican walk-out, or if HB 4016 is in any other case allowed to sundown, put together to look at the secondary marketplace for hashish license gross sales crater. PRO TIP: anybody seeking to “purchase a license” proper now is likely to be sensible to attend a minute.
Minor decoy operations (Sections 21 to 23)
These sections present OLCC authority to conduct minor decoy operations in different locales than licensed dispensaries. Below these provisions, OLCC may place younger ’uns in locations like smoke outlets and different purveyors of high-THC, hemp-derived gadgets. The Fee would even be required to develop and promote uniform requirements for the stings.
Short-term employee permits (Sections 24 to 31)
Right here, the invoice would permit candidates for marijuana employee permits to begin work whereas their functions are being processed. OLCC permits this on the liquor facet. At present, OLCC is caught up on software processing for marijuana employees, however short-term permits may show helpful someday down the road.
Conclusion
March 10 will likely be right here earlier than we all know it, and testimony on HB 4131 is rolling in quick. After I logged on this afternoon I discovered six or so submissions. This night, the quantity was up over 40.
It’s unlikely we’ll see another payments proposed this session on the hashish facet given different legislative priorities in 2024, and given the conventional limitations of a five-week session. So seize your popcorn and revel in. I’ll test in on the finish of the session or if something particularly fascinating occurs prior.
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