The California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) recently celebrated its first year as a department, focusing on establishing a safe, sustainable, and equitable cannabis market.
“I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished in just one year and excited about our future,” DCC Director Nicole Elliott said. “We are committed to making California a national model for a safe, sustainable, and equitable cannabis market and are thankful for our dedicated staff, regulatory partners, and the many others who work hand-in-hand with us to help make this a reality.”
Accomplishments within the agency’s first year include taking actions to support the cannabis market; issuing more than 4,000 new licenses; transitioning almost 1,000 provisional licenses to annual licenses; developing granting approval to eight rulemaking packages aiding the process of application, licensing, and compliance requirements; and awarding local grants totaling $100 million to 17 jurisdictions as a means of supporting local governments and businesses transitioning licenses to annual licensure.
The DCC was formed last year by merging the three state programs previously responsible for regulating commercial cannabis activity, indicating the agency licenses and regulates commercial cannabis activity within the state while collaborating with businesses and local jurisdictions to create a sustainable legal cannabis industry.