Twenty-four cities and one county in California filed a lawsuit earlier this month against California's Bureau of Cannabis Control and its director seeking a court declaration to ban the delivery of marijuana to consumers in their jurisdictions. The plaintiffs in the case have banned, as allowed by law, brick-and-mortar cannabis stores.

AnnaRae Grabstein is the chief compliance officer of NorCal Cannabis Co., a vertically integrated company that cultivates, sells and delivers marijuana. She spoke to Corporate Counsel on Wednesday about why she thinks the suit brought on by the municipalities will fail and how delivery bans are emboldening the illegal cannabis market in California.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Corporate Counsel: Does NorCal deliver in the areas that have put a ban on the brick-and-mortar stores and has the lawsuit affected business at all?

AnnaRae Grabstein: NorCal does not deliver to any of the banned areas in California. The lawsuit itself does not change any of our day-to-day operations, nor does it change our business plan. I don't believe this lawsuit is going to stand up. The people [of California] voted for regulated access to cannabis. The law was written to give local control over land use, but it does not give local governments the right to ban delivery on public roads.

The lawsuit represents a very small group of cities that are not speaking for the rest of the state. [Cannabis] delivery can support local government control of their land use for those cities that want cannabis out of sight and mind.

CC: What is the fear of allowing delivery drivers to drop off cannabis to consumers?

AG: What we're hearing is that legal cannabis delivery will become a burden on the local police forces. The drivers who work for NorCal have benefits, and they're professionally trained. They also carry a manifest, so there would be no confusion to law enforcement if they were pulled over.

CC: Is there a fear that police resources will be spent protecting drivers from robberies?

AG:  We've been making cannabis deliveries for two years and we have not had one major incident. I think that cannabis delivery is extremely safe and discreet. The BCC regulations mandate that a delivery driver have no more than $5,000 of product or currency in the car at one time. That is a lot less value than you see in an average delivery truck driving down the road.

The state has clarified its position that Proposition 64 makes it legal for a licensed delivery retailer. When we encourage statewide access to legal cannabis we all win. We're going to be able to squash the illegal market and get tax revenue that the state sorely missed out on in 2018.

CC: What kind of tax revenues did the state miss out on in 2018?

AG:  The state only saw $335 million in tax revenue even though they estimated three times that. There was a report from the BCC that found that 80 percent of cannabis consumed in 2018 came from the illegal market, which is the result of these cannabis retail deserts. People in those areas are still consuming cannabis and are purchasing it though the illegal market.