This bill is part of the 2021 Cannabis Bills section of our ongoing update on California Cannabis Legislation – see the full California Cannabis Law Legislative Update which includes information on cannabis bills from other years.
AB 273 (Irwin D) Cannabis: advertisements: highways.
Existing law places various advertising and marketing restrictions on licensees, including prohibiting a licensee from publishing or disseminating advertising or marketing that is attractive to children, from advertising or marketing cannabis or cannabis products on an advertising sign within 1,000 feet of a day care center, school, or youth center, and from advertising or marketing on a billboard or similar device visible from an interstate highway or on a state highway within California.
This bill would remove the existing reference to advertising or marketing on a billboard or similar device visible from an interstate highway or on a state highway within California, and would specify that a licensee seeking to advertise or market through broadcast, cable, radio, print, and digital communications is required to obtain reliable up-to-date audience composition data demonstrating that at least 71.6 percent of the audience viewing the advertising or marketing is reasonably expected to be 21 years of age or older. The bill would prohibit advertisements or marketing depicting images of minors or anyone under 21 years of age. The bill would specify that a licensee is prohibited from using objects, in its advertising or marketing, such as toys, inflatables, movie characters, cartoon characters, or from including any other display, depiction, or image designed in any manner likely to be appealing to minors. The bill would restrict a licensee from advertising free cannabis goods or giveaways of any type of products, including noncannabis products, as specified. The bill would require that all outdoor signs, including billboards, meet specified requirements, including, among others, that they be affixed to a permanent structure; that they not be placed in any location where other advertisements directed at an adult population are prohibited; that they comply with specified provisions of law; that they not contain text, except as provided; and that they do not display, depict, or image specified objects and actions, including animals, cannabis plants, leaves, food, beverages, smoking, and vaporizing, among others. The bill would require a licensee to provide the Bureau of Cannabis Control audience composition data immediately upon request. If the bureau determines that the audience composition data for advertising or marketing provided by a licensee does not comply with these provisions, or the licensee fails to provide audience composition data, the bill would require the licensee to remove the advertising or marketing placement in question. The bill would require a licensing authority to suspend a licensee’s license for one year if the licensee violates the advertising and marketing restrictions. The bill would specify that the action, omission, or failure of an advertising agent, representative, or contractor retained by the licensee is an act, omission, or failure of the licensee.
The Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act, an initiative measure, authorizes the Legislature to amend the act to further the purposes and intent of the act with a 2/3 vote of the membership of both houses of the Legislature, except as provided.
This bill would declare that its provisions further the purposes and intent of the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act.
Read more about California Cannabis Legislation – see the full California Cannabis Law Legislative Update.
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