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Senator Taidegui clears floor amendment to limit Agriculture role to commercial cannabis
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Summary
Senator Taidegui proffered and the legislature approved a floor amendment to Bill 254‑38 removing references to medical cannabis from provisions that govern commercial cultivation; sponsor said the change avoids jurisdictional confusion with Guam’s medical‑cannabis rules and noted two cultivators have cleared EPA review.
Senator Taidegui offered a floor amendment to Bill 254‑38 that struck references to "medicinal/medicinal cannabis" from the sections defining the Department of Agriculture’s regulatory authority over cultivation.
The amendment narrows the statute to commercial (adult‑use) cannabis, the sponsor said, because Guam’s medical cannabis program is governed under a different chapter of the Guam Code Annotated and the Department of Agriculture does not have authority over medical cannabis. Taidegui noted, "For the measure that directly impacts agriculture standards and environmental practices, their input would have been meaningful," and said two cultivators have already worked through Guam EPA review as an implementation safeguard.
The sponsor explained the change as a clarity fix: it removes language that could create jurisdictional overlap with Title 10 GCA chapter 12, article 25, the statutory area governing medical cannabis and related rules. The amendment was offered on the floor as a limited strike of the contested phrases and the sponsor walked colleagues through the specific section and double‑line edits.
On a call for objections the presiding officer received none; the amendment was adopted without objection and the bill, as amended, was moved to the third‑reading file. The session record shows no roll‑call vote on the amendment; the clerk recorded the motion as carried by unanimous/no‑objection voice action.
The transcript records concerns that the Department of Agriculture and Guam Environmental Protection Agency had not testified in the public hearing, which the sponsor said would have been "meaningful" to fully inform implementation, but she also noted that EPA review of current cultivators provides mitigation of environmental risk. The bill remains scheduled for third reading.
