Year: 2018

CDPH Files Proposed Re-Adoption of Emergency Regulations

Author: California Department of Public Health
Published: May 25, 2018
Sacramento, California

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has filed the proposed re-adoption of the emergency regulations with the Office of Administrative Law (OAL). This filing marks the start of the five-day public comment period and the 10-day OAL review period.

The public comment period will be open from today until Wednesday, May 30, 2018. Written comments must be submitted concurrently to both OAL and the CDPH Office of Regulations. Include the title of the proposed regulations, DPH-17-010E-READOPTION, with your comments.

About the Manufactured Cannabis Safety Branch

The California Department of Public Health’s Manufactured Cannabis Safety Branch (MCSB) is one of three state cannabis authorities charged with licensing and regulating commercial cannabis activity in California. MCSB regulates all commercial cannabis manufacturing in the state and strives to protect public health by ensuring commercial cannabis manufacturers operate safe, sanitary workplaces and produce products that are free of contaminants, meet product guidelines and are properly packaged and labeled.

For more information on CDPH’s Manufactured Cannabis Safety Branch, visit www.cdph.ca.gov/mcsb. For questions, contact us: mcsb@cdph.ca.gov or (855) 421-7887.

For information on the state cannabis offices, visit the California Cannabis Portal, www.cannabis.ca.gov.

CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing Public Comment Period Deadline

Author: CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing
Published: May 25, 2018
Sacramento, California

CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing Stakeholders:

Today the California Department of Food and Agriculture CalCannabis (CalCannabis) Licensing Division submitted the proposed readoption of emergency regulations for commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL).

Those who wish to comment on the proposed readoption of these emergency regulations must submit their comment directly to OAL within five calendar days of OAL’s posting of the proposed readoption on their website. The comment period will begin on Friday, May 25, 2018, and end on Wednesday, May 30, 2018. You may submit comments on the proposed readoption to OAL at:

Office of Administrative Law

OAL Reference Attorney

300 Capitol Mall, Suite 1250, Sacramento, CA 95814

When you submit a comment to OAL, you must also submit a copy of your comment simultaneously to the CDFA at:

California Department of Food and Agriculture

Attn: Amanda Brown

CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing

Re-adoption Commercial Cannabis Cultivation Emergency Regulations

1220 N Street, Suite 400, Sacramento, CA 95814

OAL will confirm CalCannabis has received the comment before considering it. Pursuant to California Code of Regulations, Title 1, section 55(b)(1) through (4), the comment must state that it is about an emergency regulation currently under OAL review, and include the topic of the emergency.

Adoption of emergency regulations does not require a response to comments. Any responses to comments from CalCannabis will be submitted to OAL within eight calendar days following the date of submission of the proposed emergency regulation to OAL unless specific exceptions are applicable.

You’ll find a lot of helpful information about the emergency regulatory process on our website, including links to:

Public participation is a critical part of the State’s development of regulations, and we encourage you to share your comments with us. Thank you for your ongoing interest in CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing. You can follow us on social media, too: just click the icons below to access us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing

California Department of Food and Agriculture

DNA Collection After Serious Arrest Constitutional in California

When a person is arrested for a serious crime in California, the law now definitely allows for officers to not only fingerprint and photograph the arrestee as part of the booking process, it also allows for a DNA cheek swab to be taken as well.

Even though there are clearly privacy concerns with taking a DNA sample from an arrestee, in 2004, the California electorate approved a proposition that required felony arrestees, and convicts, to provide law enforcement a DNA sample. Refusal to comply is a misdemeanor.

What’s This Case About?

Shortly after the law went into effect in 2009, Defendant Mark Buza was arrested due to setting a police car on fire. Buza admitted to setting the fire as an act of protest. And in keeping with his apparent protesting nature, Buza refused to comply with the DNA sample requirement. However, after his conviction on the underlying crime, he complied after the court ordered that law enforcement could obtain the sample by force if he refused again.

Buza appealed the conviction on the misdemeanor charge to California appellate court, which actually found in his favor. That court ruled that:

[T]he DNA Act, to the extent it requires felony arrestees to submit a DNA sample for law enforcement 8 analysis and inclusion in the state and federal DNA databases, without independent suspicion, a warrant or even a judicial or grand jury determination of probable cause, unreasonably intrudes on such arrestees’ expectation of privacy and is invalid under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Unfortunately for Buza, an appeal of the appellate court decision was taken up to the state’s Supreme Court. While the case was pending, a U.S. Supreme Court case, Maryland v. King was decided, upholding a similar law over a Fourth Amendment challenge. SCOTUS held:

[W]hen officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and they bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

The state supreme court then remanded to the appellate court in light of King, but the appellate court affirmed its prior ruling using the California Constitution, which resulted in yet another appeal to the state supreme court. Unfortunately for Buza, the state’s high court reversed the appellate court, upholding the law as valid both under the U.S. and state constitutions.

Related Resources:

Court: Competency Hearing a Due Process Right

Derek Antonio Johnson was waiting in his cell for trial when he was beaten — by himself.

A guard said he was “head-butting” the ground, and slapping and punching himself at the same time. Bleeding from his eyebrow, his eye socket swollen and lacerated, Johnson did not make it to trial that day.

Johnson’s attorney said the man had a history of psychiatric problems, but the trial judge didn’t buy it. Johnson was just trying to work the system, the judge said.

No Competency Hearing

California’s Third District Court of Appeal said the judge erred. Johnson was not mentally competent to stand trial, the appeals court said, and it violated his due process rights not to hold a competency hearing.

When substantial evidence suggests a defendant might be competent, “due process dictates a full exploration of the defendant’s mental health to determine if, in fact, he or she is competent to stand trial,” the judges said.

In People v. Johnson, the evidence was substantial. Johnson engaged in multiple acts of self-mutilation, shouted to voices in his head, defecated in his pants, and was placed on suicide watch.

Despite Johnson’s strange behavior and his attorney’s request for a competency hearing, the judge proceeded without him. The jury convicted him in absentia.

Guilty of Mayhem

But even the crime Johnson committed was evidence of mental illness. He was found guilty of mayhem.

After a night of barhopping together, the court record says, Johnson and his girlfriend got into a fight. He jumped on her, and bit her repeatedly in the face.

With blood running from bites to her lips and eyelid, she escaped and went to the local emergency room. A doctor glued her eyebrow back together.

In reversing Johnson’s conviction, the appeals court said there was sufficient evidence of mayhem for any future prosecution.

Related Resources:

Photo, Close Enough to Identify CVS Clerk Selling Alcohol to Minor

Yesterday, you smiled for “Candid Camera.” Today, you smile for a selfie.

In any generation, however, you really don’t smile for a police officer who is taking your picture. That was the case for a CVS clerk caught selling alcohol to a minor in Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control v. Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board.

Police had sent the teenager into the store as a decoy, then asked the clerk and the boy — beer in hand — to pose for a photo. That was good enough for identification, said California’s Third District Court of Appeal.

Photo Op

The clerk, working at a CVS store in South Lake Tahoe, was probably busy on May 2, 2015. When young Christian took a can of beer to the register, the clerk asked him for proof of birth date.

He said he was born on Nov. 27, 1996, which made him 18 years old at the time. The clerk — apparently not hired for accounting — sold him the beer.

Christian went outside and told the police officer, who had used him as a decoy. They went inside; the boy pointed out the clerk; and the officer told the clerk she had sold alcohol to a minor.

The clerk “freaked out” and apologized, then the officer asked her and Christian to pose for a photo. That led to administrative action against CVS; it could also have been contributing to the delinquency of a minor for the clerk.

Administrative Action

CVS appealed the suspension of its liquor license, arguing that administrative procedure required a face-to-face identification of the clerk. The minor had merely pointed her out from 10 feet away, CVS argued.

The Third District noted that the Supreme Court upheld the use of minors as decoys in Provigo Corp. v. Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board. And the CVS clerk and the minor were in “reasonable proximity” when the teenager pointed her out.

“The clerk in these circumstances certainly knew or reasonably ought to have known that she was being identified,” the appeals court said.

Not to mention, she posed for a “sober” photo with him.