Residents: Remove restrictions on ownership of cannabis businesses – Pacific Daily News

Steve Limtiaco
 |  Pacific Daily News USA TODAY NETWORK

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Residents should be allowed to own and operate more than one type of recreational cannabis businesses, according to public testimony presented Thursday evening to the Cannabis Control Board.

The board held the first of three scheduled public hearings on the proposed rules and regulations for the recreational cannabis industry. The hearings are required by Guam law before the rules and regulations are adopted and recreational cannabis businesses can start applying for licenses to operate.

As currently written, the rules and regulations prohibit residents from owning or having a financial interest in more than one type of cannabis business.

Testimony

Allowing businesses to cultivate, manufacture and sell their own cannabis products will help them cut their expenses and allow them to better control the quality of their product, several people told the board.

“Quality control is the biggest thing here,” said Josh Camacho, who sells fertilizers and pesticides through his business, 671 Grow Supply. Allowing several different businesses to handle cannabis products increases the risk of contamination and producing a bad product, he said.

“I think people deserve the right to control their own brand and how they’re portrayed on the retail shelf.”

David Cruz, a representative of Pacific Roots LLC, told the board that limiting legal ownership will drive up the price of legal cannabis and benefit the illegal cannabis market. The government will lose tax revenue as a result, he said.

“Cannabis is not like gas; … it’s an industry anybody can cultivate. The market is really big — black market and legal,” Cruz said.

He said if the board is concerned about cannabis businesses creating monopolies, some states have laws that require cannabis businesses to sell at least 30% of their products to other businesses.

Andrea Pellacani, managing partner of advocacy group Grassroots Guam, said she also supports allowing residents to own more than one type of cannabis business.

“Every cannabis business should have the option to be able to fill their own shelves,” she testified. “I think it makes the market more robust.”

Recreational cannabis has been legal on Guam since April 2019, and adults 21 years and older can legally consume it in private, possess it in public and grow it at home, with limits on the number of plants that can be grown at the same time. But selling it or trading it for anything of value remains illegal until the rules and regulations are in place and until the government’s seed-to-sale tracking system is operating.

Fertilizer question

Jesse Bamba, who works with commercial farmers as part of his job at the University of Guam, questioned the proposed ban on the use of synthetic fertilizers in the cannabis industry.

The rules and regulations state recreational cannabis can be grown using different methods, “but without the use of synthetic liquid or non-liquid fertilizers.”

Bamba, who testified in a personal capacity, said most local food crops currently are grown using synthetic fertilizers. He said pesticides, not fertilizers, are the main problem associated with environmental contamination in the cannabis industry.

Board member Adrian Cruz, the deputy director of the Department of Agriculture, said the board is open to changing the rules and regulations and he encouraged the public to weigh in.

“At the end of the day, we all want a successful new industry on Guam,” he said.

More hearings

Public hearings are scheduled from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Residents can testify online or in person at the governor’s complex at Adelup. No one testified in person during Thursday’s hearing.

After the public hearings, the board will meet to possibly amend the rules and regulations. Another public hearing isn’t required, even if the rules and regulations are changed.

Chairwoman Vanessa Williams said the board will continue to receive written testimony until 5 p.m. Nov. 21, which is when the final public hearing is scheduled to end.

Residents can schedule an appointment to provide oral testimony by sending an email to guamccb@revtax.guam.gov or by calling 635-1806. The board also is receiving written testimony sent to that email address.

The link to the Zoom conference is https://bit.ly/2I8w0lG. The meeting ID is 698 255 5129, and the meeting password is: CCBGUAM.

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