Senate committee reviews House amendment to H.321 that would strip proposed ‘trim and harvest’ license

Senate members on the Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs Committee reviewed a House amendment to H.321 on May 30 that would remove a proposed trim-and-harvest cannabis license and related fee and registration changes from the bill.

The amendment, expected to appear on the House floor the morning of the hearing, would delete four sections of H.321 that set licensing criteria and a new trim-and-harvest license type, remove a proposed fee change, and leave in place currently enacted provisions including the existing intent-to-apply fee, staff said.

Why it matters: committee and Cannabis Control Board staff described the amendment as a way to avoid imposing new administrative, IT and enforcement work on the board this year. Board staff said the change would postpone several policy items — including a two-year product-registration option and a two-year employee ID card — that would require technical and regulatory work before they could be implemented.

Kirby Keaton, Legislative Council, summarized the amendment’s effect to the committee, saying the change would remove the statutory sections that created the new licensing and rulemaking duties. James Pepper of the Cannabis Control Board said the proposed deletion would “take out the areas of the bill that would have added new administrative work for the…