Lori Ajax has a big job. Originally appointed in February 2016 by California Governor Jerry Brown to oversee what was then the Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation, her mission became much larger in November 2016, when Golden State voters passed Proposition 64, legalizing recreational cannabis as well. Now charged with regulating both medical and adult-use marijuana distribution and retail, the renamed Bureau of Cannabis Control has been working rapidly over the past year to get all the rules and procedures in place before the mandated start date for licensed cannabis sales of January 1, 2018.
From persuading the state’s long-time medical canna-businesses (legal but unregulated in California since 1996) to enter a more complex and demanding official market, to ensuring there’s sufficient licenses to keep enough medical cannabis flowing to patients and recreational cannabis to draw consumers from the black market, to finally evaluating the industry’s impact on the environment, there are many moving parts to the process of creating what will be the nation’s largest market for legal cannabis.
California’s legislators unified the state’s recreational and medical…