Nicole Elliott, who has led the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) since 2021, has announced that she will step down from her position at the end of the year.
Nicole Elliott (photo credit: Sacremento Business Journal).
“I am not stepping away because the mission is complete,” Elliott wrote on LinkedIn. “I am stepping away because the foundation is strong.”
She added that her time leading the department “was one of the great privileges of my life,” noting that “building public trust is hard work—doing it in real time, under scrutiny, in a complex and evolving industry, is even harder.”
In her post, Elliott said she’s leaving “to honor the responsibilities that exist beyond this,” adding that some are personal while others stem from “the same belief that brought me to this work in the first place: that service, in any form, is still worth choosing.”
Elliott’s departure comes as California’s legal marijuana market continues to face declining sales and persistent competition from the illicit market and hemp-derived THC products which are easily found online. Legal sales have dropped by nearly $1 billion since 2021, from $5.7 billion that year to $4.88 billion in 2024.
Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Elliott to her post in 2021 after previously serving as his senior adviser on cannabis. Her tenure included implementing the state’s consolidation of multiple cannabis agencies and enforcing new regulations such as the ban on intoxicating hemp-derived THC products.
Elliott concluded her announcement by expressing confidence in the department’s future, crediting the DCC’s staff who “believe in something larger than themselves.”
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