Policy Proposal: Small-Farm Direct Access in California

Each farm operation would have up to 10,000 square feet of approved mature-plant growing area, called canopy. DCC would use existing license and site records, including temporarily empty growing areas and approved shelving levels. The count would use the area actually approved, rather than the whole property or the maximum size a license class allows.

Businesses under the same ownership control or actual control would count together. Family ties, a passive minority investment, co-op membership, or shared loans or services alone would not count as control. Cottage and plant-count licenseholders could qualify without changing license types. The proposal would not require a made-up plant-to-area formula or a new survey by default.

Who could form a co-op?

A co-op would need at least three independent qualifying operations. Each would meet the 10,000-square-foot limit, and the co-op would stay within four acres statewide. There would be no fixed maximum number of members. Co-ops under common control would share that cap. An operation’s full growing area, including businesses under its control, would count in every co-op it joins.

Membership could include qualifying indoor, outdoor, and mixed-light growers, cottage and plant-count licenses, nurseries, processors, and Type 12 cultivation. A co-op would not need a minimum number of flowering growers or stock on hand. Members with valid limited-operations status could stay after their allowed stock runs out. Their approved canopy would still count, and their license status would still limit what they can do.

Where would the products come from?

Eligible products could include flower, nursery plants, finished products, and co-op collaborations. Every cannabis ingredient would need to come from the qualifying farm or co-op members. Buying, processing, packaging, or branding cannabis from elsewhere would not make it eligible.

Farms could still hire licensed manufacturers and other supply-chain providers. Seeds or young plants from outside sources could produce an eligible harvest if the qualifying operation grows them to maturity and harvests them. Testing, quality checks, manufacturing, packaging, and labeling rules would still apply.

Live plants would need an approved, lawful way to be handled and shipped. Each carrier’s approval would list the products it can carry. Permission to ship flower would not automatically cover vapes, other manufactured goods, or products that need temperature control.

Individual farm sales

A qualifying farm would add shipping permission to its cultivation license and be responsible for the sale. It could hire licensed businesses for testing, quality checks, and product preparation. Finished goods could then return to the farm for secure storage, packing, and carrier pickup. The legislation would need to allow those transfers and handling steps.

Selling through a co-op

A co-op would use a full Type 11 distribution license or full distribution activity within a Type 12 microbusiness. The license would belong to the co-op or a business it owns or controls. Simply hiring or joining an independently controlled distributor would not qualify. A transport-only distribution license would not qualify either.

The approved co-op seller could combine eligible members’ products in one order and sell properly licensed collaborations. Unrelated wholesale stock would stay outside this shipping program. Other lawful distribution and contract work could continue separately.

Type 12 microbusinesses could qualify through cultivation or co-op-controlled full distribution. The proposal would allow exactly 10,000 square feet while keeping the requirement for three qualifying activities at the same site. Shipping permission would not count as an extra activity. Retail licenses and retail activity would not qualify, and a full Type 9 or Type 10 retail license would not be required.

What would sellers and websites be responsible for?

Checkout and receipts would name the approved seller, its license and shipping permission, and every contributing producer. The seller would handle eligibility and source checks, taxes, purchase limits, refunds, recalls, and required records.

Sellers could use more than one website or software provider for discovery, orders, messages, lawful payment coordination, and shipping records. Sellers would accept orders, hire carriers, receive sale proceeds, and approve refunds. Platform fee restrictions, ownership disclosures, advertising rules, and marketplace duties would still apply. A technology provider would not gain permission to possess or transport cannabis, or become the seller simply by providing software.

Co-op agreements would explain member payments, deductions, shared costs, money held back, voting, and disputes. Members and sellers could keep access to their records when leaving a service.

Orders would travel through approved parcel carriers. Farms would still need separate permission to run local delivery. Licensed retailers could continue their existing delivery services. Earlier transfers between supply-chain businesses would still use authorized cannabis transporters.

Regional carriers, cannabis specialists, and existing distributors could apply. A distribution license alone would not approve a consumer parcel service. Each service and carrier employer would need approval covering contracts, products, insurance, permitted sites, California-only road routes, storage times, returns, and ID checks.

Carriers would use approved employees age 21 or older who meet the driving requirements. Individual gig contractors could not take their place. Sealed packages would stay locked and accessible only to trained staff, with records of each transfer and a process for incidents. A ground-shipping service would still need to show that its routes stay inside California.

1. Check the buyer’s eligibility. Show the seller, contributing farms, full charges, shipping coverage, and terms before accepting the order.
2. Complete required testing and quality checks, link products to the order, and seal the finished package.
3. Record when the carrier actually takes the package, including the time, tracking number, and product quantities. Printing a label would not count.
4. Keep routes, facilities, secure storage, and returns within the approved California service.
5. Check the named recipient’s ID, age, delivery instructions, and signature. Refuse delivery if the requirements are not met.
6. Link the delivery result to any notices, refunds, replacements, recalls, inventory changes, and tax records.

Under the proposal, carrier pickup would be the last routine outgoing entry in Metrc, California’s cannabis tracking system. Pickup would not mean the customer received the order or decide when a sale or tax is recorded. Later delivery results would stay linked in business records. Routine carrier scans would stay outside Metrc, and carriers would not need a Metrc account just for this service.

Carriers would report dated delivery results within one business day. Sellers would update their linked records within one business day of notice. Carriers would report suspected theft, loss, diversion, or security breaches to the seller, DCC, and the appropriate local law enforcement within 24 hours of discovery.

Adult-use buyers would need to be at least 21. A proposed legal change would let the buyer name another adult age 21 or older to receive the parcel. Both people would be identified before shipping. Naming a recipient would not increase purchase or possession limits.

Medical orders would go to a verified patient age 18 or older or a verified primary caregiver age 18 or older. Minors would receive through an eligible verified caregiver. Naming someone to receive a parcel would not make them a caregiver. Existing medical recommendation and card options would remain; everyone would not have to enroll for a medical card.

The seller would check medical eligibility before each release. The carrier would check the recipient’s identity, age, and delivery instructions, and refuse delivery if their authority is unclear. Packages could not be left unattended, released through lockers, redirected to unverified people, or delivered without a signature. Approved staffed pickup points would use the same checks.

Existing daily purchase limits would apply across each seller’s sales channels. The proposal would add no statewide customer registry or marketplace-wide limit. Subscriptions would need clear consent and cancellation terms. Each release would require a fresh eligibility and purchase-limit check. Drivers would receive only the information needed to hand over the package lawfully.

If an order does not arrive

Customers would see the full price, delivery area, storage and return rules, and responsible seller before buying. If delivery fails, the seller would investigate and offer an extension the customer accepts, a lawful replacement, or a refund. Replacements would need customer consent and stay within purchase limits.

Sellers would start eligible refunds within seven business days of cancellation or the customer choosing a refund after confirmed loss or missed delivery. They would not wait for the carrier to pay them back. If the seller or carrier caused the failure, the refund would include the product, applicable taxes, and failed-order shipping and service charges. If the customer caused it, only lawful, reasonable costs actually incurred for delivery attempts or returns could be deducted, and those costs must have been disclosed before purchase.

Sellers taking payment in advance would need a written refund process and funds or reliable shared or contractual protection to cover refunds. They would not need a separate dollar-for-dollar reserve, escrow account, extra bond, net-worth test, or mandatory credit line.

Undelivered goods would be held separately and checked for source, seals, handling, and quality before lawful restocking. Products returned by customers could not be resold. Recalls would require stopping or returning affected parcels, notifying recipients, and providing the required remedy and reports.

Approved sellers would take on the relevant consumer-sales tax duties and permits without needing a full retail license. Before launch, DCC and CDTFA would set out how orders, payments, shipping, receipt, cancellations, and refunds are recorded. Applicable state and local taxes, including lawful medical tax treatment, would remain.

The proposed bill would let an already approved farm or qualifying co-op distribution site handle shipping without opening to the public. For those limited activities, a separate retail permit, retail zoning change, retail license quota, or general retail ban could not block participation. DCC would notify the locality and confirm the existing site permission, without requiring new retail approval.

Sites could manage eligible orders, store compliant finished goods, pack parcels, arrange carrier pickups, and handle controlled returns. Shipping permission would not allow public shopping, on-site consumption, customer pickup, more growing space, or new manufacturing activity.

Existing cultivation and distribution conditions would remain, along with applicable building, fire, environmental, and site-change reviews. New warehouses, hubs, carrier depots, sorting or storage sites, and staffed pickup points would still need the relevant site and local permissions. Sufficient existing approvals could be reused. Statewide rules would not guarantee service to every address.

These local-use changes would need legislation and legal review, including under Proposition 64. Existing cultivation and distribution licenses do not already grant them.

Before launch, DCC would publish startup and ongoing budgets, funding sources, application checklists, and fees for endorsements and changes. Fees would reflect business size and the extra oversight needed, without automatically repeating full retail fees. Valid existing files and reviews would be reused.

DCC would send one notice listing reasonably identifiable missing items within 15 business days. Complete applications, member updates, and straightforward carrier changes would receive a decision within 30 calendar days. New or complex services would receive one within 90 days. A specific unresolved legal or safety issue could allow one written extension of up to 30 days. A missed deadline would trigger supervisor review and a written schedule, rather than automatic approval.

Regulators could inspect required records for the applicable retention period, generally at least seven years. DCC could require appropriate corrections and use suspension and review procedures. It could pause new prepaid orders when required refunds remain unpaid or there is documented evidence a seller cannot pay them.

Worker protections

Existing cannabis-license labor-peace duties would stay in place. Carrier employers would provide paid training, safe ways to refuse deliveries and report incidents, and complaint channels. Wage, safety, employment classification, workers’ compensation, and anti-retaliation protections would still apply.

A separate proposed carrier labor-peace rule would count all California employees below supervisor level at the approved employer. At ten employees, an agreement would cover staff working on approved California transport, sorting, storage, returns, and delivery, including mixed-parcel work. Existing bargaining relationships and employee choice would remain. The proposal does not claim backing from any particular union.

Carrier compliance would be managed centrally, so each farm would not need to negotiate or file it. The new carrier labor-peace rule would need legal review. If that rule were struck down, other worker duties, existing license requirements, and independently enforceable agreements would remain.

DCC would report every year, starting with readiness and costs before launch. Adult-use and medical services would each get an independent review two years after their own first lawful shipment. Results from an earlier medical launch would not establish whether adult-use service works.

The review would not automatically end the program or limit how many farms can join. There would be no automatic launch deadline or expiry date.

• Farms and workers: income after expenses, member payments, owner labor, paid jobs and hours, wages, benefits, safety, and worker representation.
• Customers and markets: prices including shipping, product choices, repeat orders, store partnerships, and sales moving between licensed and unlicensed sources.
• Public costs and compliance: program spending, total taxes versus new tax revenue, complaints, failed deliveries, losses, returns, and recalls.
• Who takes part: eligible operations and those that do not join, growing area, locations, carrier coverage, order and parcel volume, costs, and how much business is held by the largest participants.

Reports would start with existing records, reusable data exports, and voluntary interviews. They would protect privacy and explain what the evidence can and cannot show. Reviews would measure losses and partnerships for independent and equity retailers. Being a small farm would not automatically establish eligibility under social-equity laws.

The farm prices, harvests, sales, and staffing examples are planning tools. They do not show statewide averages or guaranteed income. A working budget would also need actual growing, testing, packing, shipping, payment, refund, labor, tax, and shared-service costs.

California approval would not remove federal restrictions. Adult-use and medical services would each need legal review. Medical status or patient records alone would not establish federal compliance, and future federal changes would not automatically allow interstate shipping.

Carriers would need agreements that allow cannabis, and every carrier employer, including subcontractors, would need approval before accepting parcels. No national or regional carrier is presented here as an agreed participant.

Approved services would need enforceable buyer eligibility, recipient ID and age checks, signatures, and no unattended drop-offs. If a binding order blocked essential safeguards, the affected service would stop accepting new parcels and handle existing ones lawfully. Restart would require equally effective protections approved through the required legal process.

Legal review would cover carrier handling and transport, conflicts with federal law, local site rules, and worker protections. Shared statewide guidance would explain the requirements and risks, without requiring every farm to commission its own legal opinion. Adult-use and medical services could launch separately as each meets its requirements.

The Technical Overview gives legislative drafters a checklist. Legislative Counsel would need to fit these changes into current law and forms. This is a proposal, not final bill text or enacted law.

1. Add limited direct-sales permission to qualifying cultivation and co-op-owned or controlled full distribution licenses, including eligible Type 12 activities.
2. Define approved mature-plant growing area under shared control, independent operations, eligible source cannabis, co-op control, and products from members.
3. Update co-op formation, membership, representation, transfer, and limited-operations rules. Keep at least three independent operations, the four-acre cap, and the existing restriction on out-of-state cannabis licenses.
4. Allow exactly 10,000 square feet under Type 12 while keeping three genuine qualifying activities. Processor membership and shipping permission would not count as new activities.
5. Allow tested goods to return lawfully to approved farms, sales from approved distribution sites, and lawful handling of nursery products.
6. Allow the defined shipping activities at approved sites without new retail permission, while keeping underlying site approvals and applicable building-change and environmental review.
7. Set rules for approved parcel carriers, employees, secure handling, California-only routes, returns, and recipient checks. Keep farm-operated local delivery outside this permission.
8. Update Metrc rules for carrier pickup and linked delivery records, alongside sales taxes, purchase limits, medical eligibility, refunds, and recalls.
9. Apply relevant website, advertising, marketplace, and worker protections. Address the separate legal treatment of carrier labor peace and essential recipient safeguards.
10. Fund oversight that fits the program’s size, set decision deadlines, and require annual reports and independent two-year reviews. Avoid an enrollment cap or automatic expiry date.

The farm and co-op routes would be designed so one lawful route could continue if another part were struck down, while keeping size, source, control, and seller safeguards. Binding court orders would still govern affected services. A larger legislative vote alone would not resolve a legal conflict.

Could farms ship under their existing license today?

No. California would need to create this new permission through legislation. Existing cultivation and distribution licenses alone do not allow these direct consumer sales and parcel shipments.

Could a farm sell another farm's products?

An individual farm could sell cannabis from its own qualifying operation. An approved co-op distributor could sell and combine eligible members’ products. Cannabis from outside those producers would stay out of this shipping program.

Would this authorize a farm store or local delivery?

No. This permission would cover approved parcel shipping. A farm store, on-site consumption, customer pickup, or farm-operated local delivery would still need separate legal approval.

Would every California address be served?

Service would depend on approved carriers, locations, routes, products, and delivery arrangements. Customers would see coverage before buying. Staffed pickup points would need local permission and the same recipient checks.

Would the program end after its two-year review?

No. Each service would receive an independent review after two years of lawful shipments. Annual reports would continue, without an automatic end date or enrollment cap.