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By Associated press
LOS ANGELES – California has entered a potentially historic legal battle against some of its own cities for one of the most fundamental issues on the country's largest legal marijuana market: where can you buy it? ?
Beverly Hills and 24 other local governments sued California's regulators on Friday to overturn a rule allowing home delivery across the state, even in communities that banned the sale of commercial kettles. . The ultimate question is who is in charge: the state bureaucracy that oversees the market or the local governments where the pot is grown and sold.
When California passed the delivery rule in January, the League of California Cities and police chiefs complained that unlimited home deliveries would create an uncontrolled market for largely hidden deals, while local control guaranteed by a 2016 law largely legalizing marijuana sales.
Santa Cruz County Supervisory Board Chairman Ryan Coonerty said in a statement that the state's rule was hurting local marijuana companies and "betraying the promise made to voters" in 2016.
The meaning of the lawsuit goes beyond home delivery. This is an important preliminary test of Proposition 64, the law that legalized sales of adult jars in California. There have been many disputes about the exact meaning of certain parts of the law, including those governing the size of cannabis farms.
The State Cannabis Control Bureau, which has written the rule, has no immediate comment on the lawsuit, which was filed late Thursday in the Fresno County Superior Court.
The prosecution asks the court to override the rule and prohibit the state authorities from enforcing it.
The rule "allows commercial deliveries of cannabis to any physical address in the state", which is in contradiction with the power of local governments to prohibit marijuana deliveries within their borders, said the pursuit.
Marijuana companies and consumers have pushed for home deliveries because large tracts of the state have banned pot business activity or have not established rules to allow legal sales , creating what was called the "dessert pot". Residents of these areas have actually been cut off from legal marijuana purchases.
Supporters said the problem was worse for the sick and frail who could not travel long distances to buy marijuana.
As the pot remains illegal at the federal level, it can not be sent by the US Postal Service. But people can have it delivered to their home in California. Under state rules, all deliveries of cannabis must be made by employees of an authorized retailer. Regulators say that there are 311 active licenses to deliver pot.
The delivery rule was intended to clarify what was apparently contradictory regulation as to where marijuana can be delivered to California.
The 2016 law stipulated that local governments had the power to ban marijuana businesses. However, the supervisory authorities referred to the Business and Professional Code, which stipulated that local authorities "must not prevent the delivery of cannabis or cannabis products on public roads" by an authorized operator.
The cannabis office had stated that it was simply clarifying what had always been the case: a licensed pot delivery can be made "in any jurisdiction of the country. State".
In addition to the cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Cruz, applicants include the towns of Agoura Hills, Angels Camp, Arcadia, Atwater, Ceres, Clovis, Covina, Dixon and Downey. McFarland, Newman, Oakdale, Palmdale, Patterson, Riverbank, Riverside, San Pablo, Sonora, Tehachapi, Temecula, Tracy, Turlock and Vacaville also participate.
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