Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is expecting the long-awaited cannabis bill amendment to arrive at his desk this week after the Legislature passed the bill last Aug. 2.<\/p>\n
Torres noted in an interview yesterday that, as of publication, Rep. John Paul Sablan\u2019s (R-Saipan) House Bill 21-13 has yet to land on his desk. But after reportedly consulting the Office of the Attorney General on Monday, Torres noted that he will be receiving the bill for review this week.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026I just spoke to the attorney general [Monday] and I am confident that, based on the attorney general, I should be receiving the [cannabis adjustment] bill this week,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Torres said he has yet to look at the bill but noted that he is looking forward to enacting the legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026If things go well, I will be signing it probably [next] Monday,\u201d he said, adding that his office will be inviting both chambers of the Legislature and the members of the Commonwealth Cannabis Commission before he enacts the legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026I hope that we can move forward with this legislation\u2026and start promulgating rules and regulations and get our feet off the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The bill, when signed, gives the cannabis commissioners\u2014Matt Deleon Guerrero, Nadine Deleon Guerrero, Valentino Taisakan, Lawrence Duponcheel, and Thomas Songsong\u2014six months to come up with regulations for the industry.<\/p>\n
The commission representatives consist of three representing Saipan and one each for Rota and Tinian.<\/p>\n
According to author Sablan, the clock starts ticking for the cannabis commission once they formally convene for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026But nothing stops the commission from promulgating the rules before six months,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune in a previous interview, while adding that he prefers if the commissioners \u201ctake their time\u201d when coming up with the new regulations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is expecting the long-awaited cannabis bill amendment to arrive at his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306005\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}