California's Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) said it has intensified its product safety efforts by targeting cannabis products that fail to meet the state's safety standards prior to reaching consumers.
In 2024, the DCC issued 481 embargoes resulting in hundreds of thousands of products, and a significant amount of pre-product materials, being pulled from the supply chain. Embargoes ensure that these products are withheld from the market until internal investigations confirm their safety or determine that their safety cannot be established, in which case destruction of those products is mandated.
In addition to improving consumer protection through embargoes in 2024, DCC’s product investigations team issued 63 product recalls that affected 259 products. All of DCC’s recalls resulted in the removal of almost 25,000 individual units from the shelves of legal retailers.
To improve its oversight of the state’s licensed cannabis businesses and the over 30,000 different products (totaling over 100 million units) available in California’s marketplace, DCC continues to strengthen collaboration with state agencies including to identify and address contamination. In addition, DCC is using California Cannabis Track and Trace data to assess and investigate licensee practices and products and, when necessary, remove products from the marketplace quickly.
To support the overall efforts of regulating the licensed market in a proactive manner, DCC issued 366 disciplinary actions against licensees in 2024, including 230 license suspensions and 73 license denials or revocations. Of the 366 disciplinary actions, 21 were taken against licensed testing labs which included four license revocations or denials and three license suspensions.
