California SB 378 Hemp Marketplace Report Rules and Deadlines

California’s Senate Bill 378 has required online hemp marketplaces to run a public report button for intoxicating hemp listings since July 1, 2026, and the law attaches a clock to every report. A marketplace has 36 hours to confirm a report in writing, must send status updates at least every 14 days, and owes the person who filed it a final written decision within 30 days. Each day a marketplace falls short counts as a separate violation carrying a civil penalty of up to $10,000, and any person can sue to enforce it.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill, written by Senator Scott Wiener, on October 6, 2025, as Chapter 411 of the Statutes of 2025. It passed the Senate 37 to 0 and the Assembly 76 to 0, according to the bill history. The hemp rules sit in a new Chapter 31.4 of the Business and Professions Code, beginning at Section 22944, with a parallel chapter for cannabis marketplaces and a new liability section, 1714.47, in the Civil Code.

This explainer walks through what the statute asks a marketplace to build, based on the chaptered text. It is a reading of the law, not legal advice, and operators with California exposure should have counsel confirm how it applies to their own site.

Which sites count as an online hemp marketplace

Section 22944 defines an online hemp marketplace as a website, online service, app, or social media platform, “or a portion thereof,” that does any of three things in California with an intoxicating hemp product. It can transmit a third-party seller’s offer that a consumer accepts, offer the product for sale itself, or connect a third-party seller with a consumer.

That second prong means the label is not reserved for multivendor platforms. A brand’s own store that offers an intoxicating hemp product to California buyers fits the wording, as does a WooCommerce site running a vendor plugin, an Adobe Commerce marketplace extension, or a custom-built storefront that lists other sellers’ goods. The “portion thereof” language also reaches a hemp section inside a larger general-merchandise site.

What makes a hemp product intoxicating under SB 378

The statute uses two tests. A product qualifies if its THC concentration exceeds what California’s Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law allows and it cannot lawfully be sold without a license. An inhalable hemp product qualifies if it has any detectable THC and cannot lawfully be sold without a license.

The inhalable list is broad. It names hemp flower, prerolls, vaping cartridges, liquids, prefilled devices, shatter, wax, budder, and other concentrates. For a marketplace whose vape category takes cards through a provider such as Tower Payments, a hemp cartridge with any detectable THC that California requires a license to sell falls inside the reporting duty, even if its lab sheet looks clean by federal standards.

The report button and its deadlines

Section 22944.2 sets out what the mechanism must do. It has to be “clear and conspicuous” and open to any individual, including visitors with no account. The law defines clear and conspicuous as larger type, contrasting type, font, or color, or text set off by symbols or marks, and it lets the California Attorney General write regulations refining that definition.

The form must allow, but not require, two pieces of evidence: a screenshot of the listing and identifying details such as an account name or URL. It must also collect a way to reach the reporter in writing, such as a phone number for text messages or an email address. From there, the statute sets these steps:

Written confirmation of receipt within 36 hours.
A first written status update no later than 14 days after that confirmation, then another at least every 14 days until the case closes.
Review of every report by a natural person.
A final written determination within 30 days of receiving the report.
An extension to 60 days only for circumstances beyond the marketplace’s reasonable control, with written notice to the reporter within 48 hours of learning a delay is likely.

The final determination must use one of five outcomes written into the law. Two say the report showed an intoxicating hemp ad, with the seller either blocked or left up. Two say the report lacked that evidence, with the seller left up or blocked for unrelated reasons. The fifth says the report showed no such ad on the marketplace at all. A marketplace that chooses to leave a seller up after confirming the ad has to say in writing that it knows the seller is advertising an intoxicating hemp product, state whether it referred the report to law enforcement, and attach a true copy of any referral.

Penalties and the 48-hour removal rule

A violation of Section 22944.2 exposes a marketplace to a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation, plus compensatory and punitive damages tied to its failure to comply. Any person may bring the suit, and a court “shall award” reasonable attorney’s fees and costs to a plaintiff who wins.

Speed offers protection. If a marketplace removes the reported ad or business information within 48 hours of receiving a report through its mechanism, no one may sue it over the mechanism’s design requirements for that report, and the law says the marketplace has not violated them.

The duty stays with the marketplace. A multivendor CBD site whose card acceptance was set up by Organic Payment Gateways or a general processor would still need its own form, its own reviewer, and its own records, because Chapter 31.4 does not hand any part of the work to a payment company.

Paid placement and the Civil Code defenses

The new Civil Code Section 1714.47 bars “unlawful paid online advertising,” meaning an ad for an intoxicating hemp product, or for cannabis from an unlicensed seller, that earns the marketplace money either directly or by bringing it more visitors. A marketplace that runs such an ad and is a substantial factor in a sale can be held jointly and severally liable for harm a consumer suffers from ingesting the product.

Damages can be doubled when the marketplace had actual knowledge that the product was intoxicating, and tripled when the injured consumer is a child. The statute says receipt of a report through the Section 22944.2 mechanism “may be a basis for obtaining knowledge,” so the report inbox doubles as evidence.

The section also lists complete defenses, each of which the marketplace must prove by clear and convincing evidence. The first two also require that the marketplace never had custody or control of the product. One is a standing policy that every hemp listing carry “THC free,” “nonintoxicating,” or the sentence “[Insert online marketplace name] does not permit the sale of intoxicating hemp” in the largest text that describes the product, in place when the sale happened. Others cover a marketplace that did not know and should not have known the product was intoxicating, one that required the disclosure or removed the seller after a report and before the sale, and one that pulled the listing or added the disclosure within 48 hours of learning of the problem and before any suit was filed.

What a development team would build

Read together, the two sections describe a fairly specific feature set. For a WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, or custom marketplace serving California, that list would include:

A report link on hemp listings and seller pages that works without logging in.
Optional screenshot upload and a field for the listing URL or seller name.
A required contact field for email or text replies.
Timers that flag the 36-hour confirmation, each 14-day update, the 30-day decision, and the 48-hour removal window.
A review queue assigned to named staff, since software alone cannot satisfy the natural-person rule.
Determination templates that match the five statutory outcomes, with a slot for a law-enforcement referral copy.
A listing rule that places the statutory disclosure in the product title or largest description text.
Logs showing when each report arrived, who reviewed it, and when each notice went out.

The log matters for a practical reason. Every defense in Section 1714.47 has to be shown by clear and convincing evidence, and timestamps are the simplest way to prove that a disclosure was live or a listing came down inside 48 hours.

How California’s approach fits the federal timeline

California’s law targets the listing rather than the shipment. Other states have gone after the sale itself, as New Jersey did with its ban on online hemp sales and Missouri and Illinois did with the state hemp cart blocks EC4IM covered earlier.

Federal law adds a second deadline. Most of the hemp redefinition in section 781 of Public Law 119-37 takes effect on December 11, 2026, after Public Law 119-103 limited the change until then to products with cannabinoids the plant cannot produce naturally. SB 378’s duties do not depend on that date, since the statute ties its definition to California’s own THC limits and licensing rules.

The bottom line for California marketplaces

SB 378 turns hemp listing complaints into a regulated workflow with fixed response times, a human reviewer, prescribed outcome language, and private lawsuits as the enforcement tool. Sites that offer or connect buyers to intoxicating hemp in California, including single-brand stores, have been covered since July 1. The practical defenses are fast removal, a visible “THC free” or “nonintoxicating” disclosure rule, and records that can prove both.

California SB 378 Gives Online Hemp Marketplaces 36 Hours to Confirm Listing Reports