California pot regulators struggling with job, audit says

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD
July 17, 2019

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The agency overseeing California’s legal marijuana market has been overmatched by the job and is struggling to hire sufficient staff and set an overall strategy, an audit found.

The Bureau of Cannabis Control is authorized to hire 219 people, but only 75 positions have been filled, according to an audit by the state Finance Department.

While the cannabis bureau is in its relative infancy and has established a foundation to oversee the market, “the current status and location of personnel is not sustainable to provide effective and comprehensive oversight of cannabis activities throughout California,” auditors said.

“The bureau does not have a comprehensive management strategy ... that identifies mission critical activities aligned with workload and available resources,” said the audit, which was released earlier this month.

The problems outlined in the audit provide a backstory to the uneven rollout of the state’s legal pot market, which is still competing with thriving underground sales. Legal cannabis is being sold around California, though it’s unavailable in many areas because local governments have banned sales or not set up rules for the market to operate.

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