California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed AB 2426, a new law that requires digital marketplaces to make clearer to customers when they are only purchasing a license to access media. The law will not apply to cases of permanent offline downloads, only to the all-too-common situation of buying digital copies of video games, music, movies, TV shows or ebooks from an online storefront. spotted the development, which could see marketplaces facing fines for false advertising in the state if they don’t use clear language to explain the limitations of what access entails. In other words, you won’t be seeing language like “buy” or “purchase” once the law takes effect in 2025.

The move to digital storefronts has raised new parallel concerns about ownership and preservation for media in the modern age. Ubisoft’s move to after the game’s servers shuttered is one of the most recent examples of how customers can suddenly lose access to media they felt they owned. The new California law won’t stop situations like The Crew‘s disappearance from happening, and it won’t stop those losses from hurting. But it does make clearer that ownership is a pretty rare and intangible thing for digital media.

Governor Newsom is having a busy week. He also signed the state’s “” bill yesterday and last week signed two bills with protections against , both living and deceased.

To the editor: I was disappointed to read The Times’ editorial opposing Proposition 36, a ballot measure that would reclassify some misdemeanors as felonies and would also create a new category of crime called a “treatment-mandated felony.”

For full disclosure, I am the assistant CEO of the California District Attorneys Assn., which is one of the sponsors of Proposition 36.

Proposition 36 is a measured approach to the horrible situation we find ourselves in. It makes smart and surgical modifications to Proposition 47, a well-intended but problematic measure passed 10 years ago. I hope your readers take a look at the editorial by the San Jose Mercury News saying that Proposition 36 is a “smart response” to crime, addiction and homelessness.

A recent highly respected poll found that 71% of likely California voters were in favor of the ballot measure. Among these are people who have lost loved ones to fentanyl and are tired of going to CVS and seeing socks and razors under lock and key.

Contrary to rhetoric of Proposition 36 opponents, nobody wants to go back to the days of disparately locking up brown and Black people. The goal is to make us more safe and help those living with addiction, mental illness and homelessness.

Proposition 36 will not solve the problem, but it will be one small step in the right direction.

Jonathan Raven, Davis, Calif.

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To the editor: The choices we make have consequences. When people make poor choices, like committing a third misdemeanor theft, those people should receive negative consequences.

California politicians have created policies and a culture that have resulted in a lack of appropriate negative consequences for people who make poor choices. Instead, those consequences land on society.

Unhoused people who break the law and refuse help are allowed to go on destroying themselves and our communities, while consequences such as fires and hazardous waste plague the rest of us. Thieves who steal everything from detergent to copper wiring go largely unpunished, while the rest of us wait for the keys to store cabinets and walk on unsafe, dark sidewalks.

The editorial board’s opposition to Proposition 36 shows its disconnect from reality. A kindergartner learns that choices have consequences. We Angelenos have learned what happens when our leaders and law enforcement officials fail to hold people accountable for their actions.

Progressive leniency has resulted in the filthy city we have today. We must hold everyone accountable to the same legal standards and consequences. Don’t steal the pizza.

Victoria Mordecai, San Marino

Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong have filed a lawsuit against the California Department of Public Health over an emergency regulation on hemp products that include any detectable levels of THC. The pair argues that outlawing the psychoactive cannabinoid/compound found in cannabis and cannabis products would be like suddenly banning the inclusion of sugar in candy.

“Inaction over the last three years hardly serves as a sufficient basis for declaring a sudden emergency and circumventing the meticulous procedures of regular rulemaking,” Tuesday’s filing states. “It’s akin to requiring candy to stop containing sugar … starting tomorrow.”

The comedy duo’s dispute comes after the full ban, which was proposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, went into effect on Monday less than three weeks after he pitched it on a temporary status on Sept. 6.

For the record — for anyone wondering why hemp is the issue at hand versus marijuana, the two names are just different terms for the same flowering plant that exist in the Cannabaceae family, per Healthline. However, in the court of law, the pair is dealt with differently, as their differences lie within their levels of THC. Hemp is used to describe cannabis that contains 0.3% or less THC by dry weight, while marijuana or weed is defined as any cannabis that has more than 0.3% of THC by dry weight.

In the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by TheWrap, several leaders in the hemp and cannabis industry, including Juicetiva, Blaze Life and Boldt Runners, join Cheech and Chong in questioning the state’s decision. The businesses state that the ban’s rules are based on a flawed claim of an “emergency” and the state’s move is actually just the result of legislators failing to execute hemp regulations that were proposed in California’s legislature AB 45, which was signed into law on Oct. 6, 2021.

“In 2021, California’s legislature passed AB 45 to deal with a wide range of matters relating to the regulation of hemp products in California,” the lawsuit reads. “While adopting a details definition of ‘industrial hemp products,’ ‘hemp products’ and ‘THC or comparable cannabinoids,’ AB 45 did not distinguish between intoxicating and non-intoxicating cannabinoids.” It added that AB 45, which is “now codified in various sections of the California Health & Safety Code,” also addressed the manufacture, warehousing, distribution, offering, advertisement and sale of hemp products.

With that, the lawsuit goes on to say that AB 45’s broad overview can’t realistically cover “a number of practical details” and as a result, AB 45 ultimately allowed California’s Department of Public Health to “promulgate regulations necessary to administer the California Health & Safety Code provisions, its restrictions, limitations and other specifics related to the sale of hemp.” But as part of those regulations, the suit states, there should be a procedure put in place that ensures those rules are “both authorized and appropriate.” The group says that despite California having “nearly three years” to address the issue, it never did.

“At the core of the Department’s emergency regulations is a provision that goes far beyond the limits contemplated in AB 45 to ban all hemp products unless they contain no ‘detectable levels of THC.’ This draconian regulation will essentially devastate an emerging industry that consists largely of small business owners,” the suit states.

In conclusion, the docs state that the department “has acted entirely outside the boundaries of California’s applicable law” to adopt and issue them, adding that the ban will end with cannabis companies suffering “losses in the millions of dollars over existing products, pending manufacturing and future sales of hemp and hemp products that legally contained THC, as per existing California and federal law, but have now been banned overnight by the emergency regulations.”

Marin and Chong plan to move forward by filing a separate petition for a temporary restraining order, which seeks to block the THC ban while the state sorts and outlines its procedures within AB 45.

Pamela Chelin contributed to this reporting.

The post Cheech and Chong Sue California Over Emergency Ban on Hemp Products Containing Any Detectable Level of THC appeared first on TheWrap.