Fiscal impact reports (FIRs) are prepared by the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) for standing finance
committees of the Legislature. LFC does not assume responsibility for the accuracy of these reports if they
are used for other purposes.
F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T
SPONSOR Sen. Stefanics/Reps. Lord and Gonzales
LAST UPDATED
ORIGINAL DATE 02/06/2025
SHORT TITLE County Petition for Cannabis License Pause
BILL
NUMBER Senate Bill 152
ANALYST Montano
ESTIMATED ADDITIONAL OPERATING BUDGET IMPACT*
(dollars in thousands)
Agency/Program
FY25 FY26 FY27
3 Year
Total Cost
Recurring or
Nonrecurring
Fund
Affected
RLD/CCD
No fiscal
impact
$40.0
No fiscal
impact
$40 Nonrecurring General Fund
RLD/CCD
No fiscal
impact
$69.0 to $636.0 $69.0 to $636.0
$138.0 to
$1,272.0
Recurring General Fund
Total
No fiscal
impact
$109.0 to
$676.0
$69.0 to $636.0
$178.0 to
$1,312.0
General Fund
Parentheses ( ) indicate expenditure decreases.
*Amounts reflect most recent analysis of this legislation.
Sources of Information
LFC Files
Agency Analysis Received From
Regulation and Licensing Department (RLD)
New Mexico Attorney General (NMAG)
SUMMARY
Synopsis of Senate Bill 152
Senate Bill 152 (SB152) amends the Cannabis Regulation Act to allow county governments to
request a temporary moratorium on new cannabis producer licenses. A board of county
commissioners may initiate a request to impose a two-year moratorium on the issuance of new
cannabis producer licenses within its jurisdiction. To do so, the county commission must first
hold a vote on the proposed petition, determining whether the moratorium applies exclusively to
commercial cannabis producers or includes medical cannabis producers as well. Upon approval,
the county must publish a public notice of its petition and submit the request to the Cannabis
Control Division (CCD) of the Regulation and Licensing Department (RLD) within ten days.
Once CCD receives the petition, it has ten days to evaluate the request and issue a decision. If the
division approves the moratorium, it will immediately halt the issuance of new cannabis
producer licenses within the county for a period of two years. If the petition is denied, CCD must
provide a formal written response outlining its findings and conclusions, explaining the reasons
for the denial, and citing any applicable legal or regulatory justifications.
A county is not required to maintain the moratorium for the full two-year period if it determines Senate Bill 152 – Page 2
that the restriction is no longer necessary. If circumstances change, the county commission may
vote to petition CCD to lift the moratorium before the two-year period expires. CCD will then
assess the county’s justification for ending the restriction early and, if the request is approved,
will resume issuing cannabis producer licenses in that county.
This bill does not contain an effective date and, as a result, would go into effect 90 days after the
Legislature adjourns if enacted, or June 20, 2025.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
RLD expects that managing moratoriums across 33 counties will require significant tracking,
reporting, and oversight. The magnitude of how these new requirements will affect RLD’s
operating budget is dependent on how frequent the 33 counties petition to pause cannabis
licensures. CCD is required to review all moratorium petitions and to provide a motion of
accepting or denying after 10 days. CCD highlights that these moratoriums would become a top
priority to effectively review and analysis, which in turn may push back other assignments
within the agency. CCD may also require its employees to stay and work longer hours, which in
turn will increase the agency’s need to provide overtime for its employees.
RLD expects that there will be recurring and nonrecurring increases to the agency’s operating
budget, which includes $40 thousand in nonrecurring costs for improvements to CCD’s current
licensing software, Salesforce. RLD is also expecting recurring costs from county specific
demand studies and professional service contracts for each county petition that is received. RLD
expects each demand study to cost up to $9,000 and $60 thousand per professional contract.
Therefore, if every county submitted a petition for moratorium, then RLD would need $297
thousand of general fund revenue to conduct the adequate amount of demand studies. RLD’s
analysis uses an example of receiving four county petitions and needing four contracted
professionals, which may be somewhat extreme, as a contracted professional could most likely
handle multiple petitions. Holding RLD’s assumption as true, if all 33 counties filed a petition
for moratorium at the same time, then the agency would incur a little less than $2 million costs.
In total, a hypothetical cost ceiling, based on RLD’s analysis, would assume a total
implementation cost of $2.3 million. However, a more appropriate projection would be to
assume six contracted professionals could handle all 33 counties. This results in a nonrecurring
range of $69 thousand for one county demand study and one contracted professional to $636
thousand for 33 studies and six contracted professionals.
SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
SB152 does not include criteria for CCD to use to approve or deny county moratorium petitions.
RLD also highlights that a 10-day decision window is not ample time for the agency to prepare
adequate and in-depth analysis of the county’s moratorium request. RLD is expecting that these
two issues should lead to legal challenges for most decisions made by CCD.
RLD added this commentary regarding other substantive issues:
SB152 does not clarify how moratoriums would impact pending license applications.
This could create conflicts between current applicants and newly imposed restrictions,
leading to disputes over whether applications submitted before a moratorium should be
honored. Senate Bill 152 – Page 3
RLD also adds this commentary:
Granting CCD the authority to impose a countywide moratorium on new producer
licenses also may raise concerns about overreach and market control. CCD was
established to regulate and oversee the statewide cannabis industry. Empowering CCD to
halt cannabis production in individual counties, without clear statutory criteria,
effectively expands the CCD authority significantly beyond the limits of the current
provisions of the Cannabis Regulation Act. This level of discretion could create
unintended consequences, such as favoring existing license holders by preventing new
competition, distorting local market dynamics, or interfering with business investment
decisions. While the individual county commissions would be directly involved in the
decisions to file petitions seeking moratoriums for their counties, the final decision-
making on whether a moratorium would be granted would lie with the CCD. In addition,
the power to approve or reject moratorium requests risk politicizing the CCD’s role,
exposing it to political pressure, lobbying, and legal challenges from both industry
stakeholders and local governments.
The New Mexico Attorney General (NMAG) also notes that SB152 may present a conflict with
the Cannabis Regulation Act due to the act restricting a local jurisdiction from prohibiting the
operation of a license:
The above provision notwithstanding, SB152 may offend preemption doctrines. Whether
a law limits the power of home rule authority is a two-step process. Smith v. City of Santa
Fe, 2006-NMCA-048, 139 NM 410 The first question is whether the law in question is a
“general law,” a law that applies generally throughout the state, relates to a matter of
statewide concern, and impacts inhabitants across the entire state. As the Cannabis
Regulation Act is likely a general law, the next question is whether the statute “expressly
denies” the home rule municipality’s authority. This can be determined by analyzing
whether (1) the law evidences a clear intent to negate such municipal power, (2) the law
implies a clear intent to preempt that governmental area from municipal policymaking, or
(3) whether the grant of authority to another body would make exercise by a home rule
authority inconsistent with the statute.
PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS
RLD projects performance challenges within CCD if the division experiences a high number of
petitions for moratorium from the 33 counties. If the unlikely situation that all 33 counties
petition for moratorium, then CCD would face an increased workload, which in turn could lead
to a rushed and inconsistent decision for multiple counties. However, if CCD receives the
necessary funding to improve the Salesforce licensing system and sufficient funding to conduct
counties petition for moratorium, then there should be no performance challenges within CCD.
NM/hj/SL2/rl