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Regulations and their Burdens

Regulations and their Burdens

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I have mentioned KMUD Community Public Radio’s The Cannabis Show that Sunshine and I host each Monday from 5 to 6 PM. KMUD itself is the most killer radio station that you are apt to find. I suggest you check it out over at www. Kmud.org, where you can check the archives. Our show streams on Mondays

We are a guest/ call-in talk show format, and on this 8/12 show, we spoke with Holly Carter from Oxalis Consulting (www.oxaliscalifornia.com) – a thorough professional in our business. We asked her if we could pick her brain, and I will present some of her thoughts here. Listen to the show cuz she was a great guest, and, in fact, we are bringing her on next week as well – just too much to cover in one show.

The “Big Four” agencies that are most frequently encountered are our County (Humboldt in our case), the State Waterboard, the CDFW, and the DCC.

Humboldt County has not been handling the cannabis industry well up here. But in the end, it is really your responsibility to work with that. Take, for example, our permits, which often come with conditions of approval. This is very common, and satisfying these conditions can not be ignored. The best practice to address this is to create regular lines of communication, ask for an extension if you need one, and before, after, and in-between, show your plans to the official – make sure they realize that you know what you are doing.

Oh, a reminder – this is the last year you can get your annual.

With the waterboard, it seems somewhat straightforward; they are mainly concerned about illegal discharge into the waters of California (as we all might be). Their other issue involves non-reporting. Once a year, they want a report submitted. Even if nothing has changed, they get mighty pissy if they do not get it. Go online and submit the thing.

I don’t trust the CDFW to use their authority for anything useful to help farmers. And now, they have proposed new regulations that would allow them to cancel a farm license over a lack of reporting. It is not that the law doesn’t allow them to do that anyway, they just want to fast track the process. Granting them this authority is ill-advised; they have a poor reputation – especially up in Humboldt. And, like all these agencies, they want their reports as well; they want a work completion report and the LSA agreement. You are on their hit list if you don’t have these reports in order.

Finally, you have the DCC, the Department of Cannabis Control (what an awful title for the agency), and their demands. They provide so many reasons to dislike them. Take a look at their enforcement page. A few things will get you in trouble right away. First are ownership issues, which are a little confusing and not what you might expect them to be. You could find yourself suspended for someone’s financial interest that you have not disclosed, a loan or someone who manages the loan that you did not inform the State about, or a decision-making manager who is in control of the operation. Be very careful with “partnerships,” which could lead to ownership grief. The State wants to know who is in charge.

Next week, the show will do a Part 2 with Holly and then cover a number of items we just did not have time for: generators, carbon emissions, the taxing agencies, and, finally, claims enforcement. The enforcement methods that businesses can use to collect debt may surprise you.

This all provides a little insight into the horrendous regulation issues that cannabis businesses must deal with. During the show, a caller mentioned that although his was not a cannabis business, it was still heavily regulated. He was quick to point out that he had never known any industry that was as completely burdened with regulations as cannabis. We will continue to explore this with you.

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Steve Dodge owns Homegrown Farms and partners at Humboldt Growers Network. Besides The Cannabis Show, he is on Substack (https://nevergiveup.substack.com/) and Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/home_grown). Well, almost on. Steve hosts the Cannabis Show on www.kmud.org every Monday from 5 to 6 PM. Been in the biz since 1978. His farm comes equipped with Gizmo, the black cat, and Leda, the really big Rottweiler.

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