In November 2016, the voters of California adopted Proposition 64 - the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 26000 et seq. The act established a basic framework for licensing, oversight and enforcement related to cannabis businesses. In accordance with the act, California has a state agency - the Department of Cannabis Control - that is charged with licensing cannabis businesses.

In light of this background, one might be forgiven for assuming that cannabis is legal in California. Indeed, the California In a recently published opinion, the Second District Court clearly disagrees:

It is often said that cannabis is legal in California. The statement is not true. Under federal law cannabis is illegal in every state and territory of the United States. (See Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. § 801 et seq.; 21 U.S.C. § 812 (c)(10); City of Garden Grove v. Superior Court (2007) 157 Cal.App.4th 355, 377.) Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, provides in part, “The Constitution, and the Laws of the United States . . . shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

JCCrandall, LLC v. Cnty. of Santa Barbara, (Cal. Ct. App. Oct. 29, 2024). The case does not involve a criminal prosecution for possession or use of marijuana. Rather, it involves a landowner's objection to a county's grant of a conditional use permit for the cultivation of cannabis. The Court of Appeal held the CUP was defeated because "under federal law cannabis is illegal in California and everywhere else in the United States". According to the court, "[t]hat the possession and cultivation of cannabis has the imprimatur of legality in California is beside the point".

Whatever one's views may be on cannabis, one might wonder how it is "legal" for the State of California to license and regulate a business that the Court of Appeal has unequivocally pronounced as "illegal".