Cat Packer stepped down from her role as executive director of the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR), home to one of the largest, most challenging cannabis markets in the world. It is with gratitude that we thank her for her service as the city’s first “cannabis czar.” 

Packer served nearly five years, as the first person to assume the role of executive director of the DCR. The department is responsible for administering the cannabis licensing and regulatory program established by the Los Angeles City Council. 

DCR processes all applications for thousands of cannabis licenses in the City of Los Angeles, makes licensing decisions or licensing recommendations to the Cannabis Regulation Commission and regulates the operations of licensed cannabis businesses in the city.

Under the title, Packer advised Los Angeles officials on cannabis law, policy and regulation, and oversaw the city’s licensed commercial cannabis market. It was a challenging position for anyone to tackle. Over 1,200 business licenses were granted with Packer at the helm.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti first announced her departure on Twitter. “Under Cat’s leadership, DCR issued over 1,200 licenses, with over 350 granted to Social Equity applicants,” Garcetti wrote in a tweet. “DCR has generated over $320M in tax revenue since 2018. Cat’s tenure at DCR made the department a national model in establishing equitable cannabis policy and implementation.”

Packer wrote a resignation announcement on March 14, outlining some of her accomplishments during her tenure as executive director. “I am confident that the City will continue to deepen its commitment to address cannabis policy reforms and the disproportionate impact of the War on Drugs, and to improve upon existing efforts that make cannabis public policy more responsible and equitable,” Packer wrote. “Furthermore, I trust that DCR will continue to keep equity at the center of its mission, and expand and improve cannabis programs and services.”

Ironing Out Licensing Hurdles

Garcetti appointed Packer to the position in August 2017, after city voters approved the local regulation and taxation of adult-use cannabis earlier that year. 

Packer faced overwhelming odds and pressure during her reign, with challenges that could be expected in America’s second-largest city. Licensing processes were under constant fire. ​​In 2020, for instance, cannabis business license applicants in Los Angeles sued the city, claiming the process for applying for a license is flawed.  

A lawsuit was filed by the Social Equity Owners and Workers Association—demanding that the city vet all applications based on a first-come-first-served basis or come up with a new system that is more equal and transparent.

Virgil Grant, co-founder of the California Minority Alliance, said Packer is the “fall person” who took the blame for various problems from the get-go, according to The EUR/Electronic Urban Report, while others cited other issues.

“It took a considerable amount of time for us to get the resources, whether it be staff or otherwise, to put our licensing program forward,” Packer told High Times last July. Packer’s staff was eventually tripled to meet the growing needs. As of last year, her team grew from a tiny five-person staff to a more reasonable 15-person staff. 

Initially, Packer sought out to become a civil rights attorney focusing on LGBTQ rights. But things changed in 2012 when Colorado and Washington legalized adult-use cannabis. While aware of the issue, she didn’t think critically about the topic for a few more years. 

But then in 2015, her final year in law school, Cat Packer began taking courses on how the law impacted everyday people. Once she was introduced to The New Jim Crow by civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander, a professor at the university, she said her eyes were opened. She agreed that nothing had contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs. 

In 2016, while working with Californians for Responsible Marijuana Reform, Packer campaigned for Proposition 64 with the Roll Up the Vote party with The Game and DJ Nitrane. It was around that time that High Times received emails from her and her campaign, urging volunteers to make calls to voters and get to work.

In the meantime, Michelle Garakian, assistant executive director of the Department of Cannabis Regulation, has been appointed interim executive director. Garakian was also a frequent correspondent with cannabis-related media.

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After a series of delays and legal obstacles, the state of Rhode Island finally appears ready to dole out new licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries.

The state’s Department of Business Regulation announced last week that it will commence a lottery this Friday for five new dispensary licenses. 

In what local television station WPRI described as a “highly choreographed” event, the lottery will take place at the Rhode Island Department of Administration in the capital city of Providence, with limited general seating available to the general public. The lottery will also be livestreamed via Zoom.

The licenses will be awarded to dispensaries from five different geographic zones. WPRI has more details on the event: “A total of 37 applications from 23 companies will be in play for the five coveted licenses. The lottery balls have already been inspected and weighed by experts at the University of Rhode Island and sealed in a briefcase sealed with bomb squad tape since April 30, according to the state’s director of cannabis regulation, Matt Santacroce, who showed the briefcase to reporters Friday morning. A second, practice set of balls was used to demonstrate the procedure.”

The announcement comes on the heels of delays to the lottery process. The lottery was originally scheduled to be held in the first week of August, but that was postponed due to an appeal lodged by an applicant who had been rejected.

Matthew Santacroce, chief of the Office of Cannabis Regulation within the Department of Business Regulation, told the Providence Journal at the time that the lottery would not be conducted “until that appeal has run its course.” 

That still has not been resolved, however. WPRI reported that “an appeal hearing date has still not been set,” and that Santacroce “declined to comment on the ongoing appeal procedure.”

The appeal is being levied by a company called Atlas Enterprises Inc., which “had applied to open a dispensary in Newport, where such businesses are banned by local ordinance,” according to WPRI.

Rhode Island legalized medical cannabis in 2006, when the state legislature passed the Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act. Lawmakers in the state overrode the veto of then-Republican Governor Don Carcieri to get the law over the line. 

Patients in Rhode Island can acquire a prescription if they have one of several qualifying conditions, via the state’s Department of Health: Cancer or the treatment of this condition; Glaucoma or the treatment of this condition; Positive status for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or the treatment of this condition; Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) or the treatment of this condition; and Hepatitis C or the treatment of this condition.

But 25 years after that law passed, the Providence Journal noted that the state still has only three medical marijuana dispensaries.

It may not be long for adults in the Ocean State to legally acquire some weed. In June, the Rhode Island state Senate passed a bill legalizing recreational pot use. The bill was pushed by Democratic lawmakers, including state Senate Majority Leader Joshua Miller.

“It is a historic day, as it is the first time a bill to legalize and regulate cannabis has reached the floor of either legislative chamber in Rhode Island,” Miller said after the bill’s passage. “It is important that we act expeditiously to enact a regulatory framework.”

Lawmakers have continued to iron out the terms of the legislation in the months since, and last week, WPRI reported that legislative leaders “are inching closer to a agreement on legalizing recreational marijuana, but have still not settled on what sort of governing body will oversee, regulate and issue retail licenses in the potentially lucrative market for legal cannabis.”

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