HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The government of Guam is less than three months away from accepting the first applications for businesses to legally grow, manufacture and sell cannabis and other products infused with the plant’s chemicals and compounds.
Vanessa Williams, chairperson of the Cannabis Control Board confirmed at a monthly meeting Monday that rules and regulations guiding the application process and how the island’s adult-use cannabis industry should be governed went into effect without action from the Legislature.
“The time has elapsed, so our rules have been approved by default,” she said.
Local law grants legislators the final action when the government of Guam promulgates new rules. After being publicly drafted, heard, reviewed by the attorney general and approved by the governor, senators are given a 90-day window to act. Lawmakers can, through legislation and a formal vote, approve, disapprove or amend any rule or regulation submitted to them.
According to the compiler of laws, in an email sent to Williams, absent action from the Legislature by the statutory deadline, the rules “by operation of law” went into effect May 30.
But the email also noted that before the compiler can officially “ascertain legislative approval” of any rules, it must first receive certification from Speaker Therese Terlaje.
She did not respond to a request from the Post for an updated status of that certification.
On June 2, after the rules lapsed into effect, Terlaje sent a request to Williams for copies of a baseline cannabis study that was mandated in the legislation authorizing the industry rules. A day later, the speaker inquired with the Office of the Attorney General whether the rules may be certified “without proof that the baseline study required in statute was conducted.”
On Monday morning, Williams provided the study and minutes to the speaker. Later that day, the OAG responded to Terlaje that with the study transmitted to her, “it is within your discretion to certify, and the legislative secretary’s discretion to attest to, the default approval of the rules and regulations.”
Williams, in an interview with The Guam Daily Post, said unless a court orders otherwise, the board will proceed with administering the rules and preparing to accept applications.
90 days to prepare
Clarity on whether, and when, the rules went into effect is important because another statutory deadline is dependent on those answers.
By law, the government of Guam has only up to 90 days following the enactment of the rules and regulations to begin accepting and processing applications for cannabis testing, cultivation, manufacturing and dispensing. That time frame, using the enactment date from the compiler of laws, would open the applications to be the first-ever licensed cannabis business on Guam around late August.
The CCB, during Monday’s meeting, gave itself 30 days to draft an implementation plan and explore the needs and concerns of partner agencies in agriculture, health and taxation.
“Until we actually had rules that were (in effect), knowing that the Legislature could have…introduced a bill that would have made them look substantively different, it might have been a little premature to start training people,” Williams said. “But now that we definitively have rules…we should be able to move.”
The board is also tracking requested changes to the regulations expressed in testimony during a recent legislative public hearing. Members discussed being open to compromises on required versus incentivized farming methods and the allowance of vertically-integrated business models. Williams also advised that corrective, “non-controversial” changes to the regulations are needed as well, to clarify or correct language that “wasn’t meant” to be in the final version.
The CCB’s next meeting, during which an update on the implementation plan is expected to be given, is scheduled for July 11.
Nick Brown, the owner of the Releaf Shop in Hagåtña, holds a popular CBD sleep aid at his shop on Monday afternoon. By late August, local businesses can begin to apply to legally grow, process and sell cannabis and cannabis-infused products.
