Nearly six years after Guam legalized adult-use cannabis, there is still no legal market on the island. Lawmakers say the problem is no longer the law itself – but the system meant to carry it out.
The Guam Cannabis Act has been on the books since 2019, but today there is not a single business on the island that is licensed and operational for legal cannabis testing – and lawmakers say the reason has less to do with demand and more to do with dysfunction. That breakdown was the focus of a public hearing and legislative roundtable on Senator Telo Taitague's Bill 245, a measure that would extend a temporary exemption from cannabis laboratory testing requirements from two years to five.
Taitague stressed the bill does not remove testing standards or make the exemption permanent. Rather, she says it gives the government more time to build the system the law requires, stressing, "Laboratory testing for cannabis is an important safeguard for consumers and this bill does not abandon that principle."
And Department of Public Health and Social Services deputy director Amanda Shelton reiterated, saying, "There are currently no licensed cannabis facilities in operation, including licensed laboratories capable of conducting the required testing."
Read more at Kuam News
