Unexpectedly, Governor Gavin Newsom didn’t rain down a cacophony of good news for marijuana enthusiasts over the weekend.
While he did make some positive decisions, such as vetoing a bill that would add more burden to the packaging of marijuana products and signing a bill that stops employers from asking about prior marijuana use while in the hiring process, he also rejected a few bills that would have moved the industry forward in the state of California.
The one garnering the most attention was not necessarily marijuana-related, but would have impeded the impact of the War on Drugs as a whole by decriminalizing psychedelics. After years of making its way through the state Senate, a bill to decriminalize psilocybin and other psychedelics finally landed on the Governor’s desk only to get vetoed at the last stage. Newsom’s reasoning was that the decriminalizing would precede the setting up of therapy guidelines and regulations.
“California should immediately begin work to set up regulated treatment guidelines—replete with dosing information, therapeutic guidelines, rules to prevent against exploitation during guided treatments, and medical clearance of no underlying psychoses,” Newsom stated. “Unfortunately, this bill would decriminalize possession prior to these guidelines going into place, and I cannot sign it.”
Another bill unfortunately vetoed was one that would legalize cannabis cafes. For his reasoning, he stated that he is “concerned this bill could undermine California’s long-standing smoke-free workplace protections. Protecting the health and safety of workers is paramount. I encourage the author to address this concern in subsequent legislation.”
Newsom left the door open for the bills to address his concerns and come back in a year with a revised offer. So there’s still hope for the future.
As for the packaging bill that would have prohibited packaging attractive to children, Newsom vetoed the bill because the term “attractive to children” was overly vague.
Read the original article at Marijuana Moment.
