World’s First Regulations for Cannabis Appellations Finalized
by Omar Figueroa
December 7, 2021
Seal of proposed Palo Verde Appellation, courtesy of Robert Steffano
The world’s first regulations for cannabis appellations have been finalized recently, nearly two years after the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) first released the original proposal for cannabis appellations of origin in February of 2020. The process began almost two years before that, when CDFA hosted six public outreach sessions across the state in the Fall of 2018.
On November 23, 2021, the Office of Administrative Law approved the CDFA’s proposed regulations for establishing appellations of origin for cannabis. You can download the historic text and final statement of reasons below:
We have written several blog posts about appellations in the past, including: Governor Newsom Signs Law Mandating Terroir-Driven Cannabis Appellations (September 2020), Senate Bill 67 Would Mandate Terroir-Driven Cannabis Appellations (July 2020), Overview of Proposed Regulations for Cannabis Appellations (February 2020), and CDFA Publishes Proposed Regulations for Appellations of Origin (February 2020).
The Cannabis Appellations Program (CAP) remains within CDFA, even though in July of 2021, the CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing Division of CDFA merged with two state cannabis programs (the Bureau of Cannabis Control within the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Manufactured Cannabis Safety Branch within the California Department of Public Health) to form a new state department called the Department of Cannabis Control.