Complex California Pot Act Created Unseen Problem: New at Reason

California legislators were in a rush to change a 20-year-old law and messed up. Steven Greenhut reports:

California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 215, legalizing marijuana’s use for medical purposes, back in 1996. It’s hard to understand why such measures needed to be rushed through after nearly two decades of dawdling.

The problem: The Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act included a paragraph that gave state officials full authority to license and regulate medical marijuana in any cities or counties that did not adopt specific ordinances regulating or banning marijuana cultivation by March 1. With the deadline looming, localities began hurrying through cultivation bans.

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