By the conclusion of the 2025 California Legislative Session this past weekend, state lawmakers had sent five (5) cannabis bills to Governor Newsom’s desk, including measures to rollback the cannabis excise tax, and to integrate industrial hemp products into the cannabis supply chain governed by the Medicinal and Adult Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA).
- Sponsored by Assembly Member Haney, AB 564, if signed by Governor Newsom, will rollback the current nineteen percent (19%) state cannabis excise tax to its pre-July 1, 2025 level of fifteen percent (15%) of gross receipts on October 1, 2025. Under AB 564, beginning in the 2028–29 fiscal year and every two (2) years thereafter, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) will be required to adjust the cannabis excise tax rate by a percentage that will generate an amount of revenue that would have been collected pursuant to the cultivation tax imposed prior to its discontinuation, not to exceed nineteen percent (19%).
- Sponsored by Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry, AB 8 aims to:
- strengthen enforcement against intoxicating hemp products by banning the sale of synthetic and high-THC hemp outside the regulated cannabis market,
- bring out-of-state hemp manufacturers under registration requirements, and
- integrate non-intoxicating hemp cannabinoids into the state’s legal cannabis framework governed by MAUCRSA.
- Sponsored by Senator Wiener, SB 378 will make online marketplaces strictly liable for damages resulting from advertising and sales of illicit cannabis and intoxicating hemp products, and it will require platforms to establish reporting mechanisms and issue clear disclosures about seller licensing. The bill aims to protect legal cannabis businesses and public health by prohibiting paid online advertisements for unlicensed operators and by allowing broad civil enforcement.
- Sponsored by Assembly Member Hart, AB 632 will streamline the process for a local agency to obtain a court judgment for payment of fines and penalties for unlicensed commercial cannabis activity, and will establish a procedure to collect administrative fines or penalties by lien upon the parcel of land on which the unlicensed commercial cannabis activity occurred.
- And sponsored by Assembly Member Ahrens, AB 1332 will authorize a licensed microbusiness with an M-license whose licensed activities include retail sale, distribution, and outdoor cultivation to directly ship medicinal cannabis to a medicinal cannabis patient in the state, and will authorize free medicinal cannabis or medicinal cannabis products provided to medicinal cannabis patients in compliance with MAUCRSA to be shipped to those patients by a licensed microbusiness with an M-license.
Governor Newsom has until October 12, 2025 to take action on any measures delivered to him this legislative session.