On Jan. 18, the Supreme Court of California issued an order granting review of the now infamous line of medical marijuana cases of Pack v. City of Long Beach, City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patient’s Health and Wellness Ctr., Inc., Traudt v. City of Dana Point, and People v. G3 Holistic. Unless the Supreme Court decides otherwise, this means that medical marijuana advocates can rejoice because local jurisdictions and lower courts cannot use the logic of Pack or Riverside as a vehicle to scuttle the regulatory processes that assure safe access to California’s medical [...]
The state’s largest doctor group is calling for legalization of marijuana, even as it pronounces cannabis to be of questionable medical value. Trustees of the California Medical Association, which represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, adopted the position at their annual meeting in Anaheim late Friday, Anthony York reports in the Los Angeles Times. It is the first major medical association in the nation to urge legalization of the drug, according to a group spokeswoman, who said the larger membership was notified Saturday. Dr. Donald Lyman, the Sacramento physician who wrote the group’s new policy, [...]
Two Sonoma County lawyers behind a new statewide effort to legalize marijuana believe 2012 could be their year. Joe Rogoway and Omar Figueroa have drafted a ballot initiative that would repeal all laws against possessing pot, allowing anyone 18 or older to have up to three pounds and to maintain a 100-square-foot garden. The state Department of Public Health would oversee regulation and taxation of commercial sales, Paul Payne reports in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. The measure could go before voters at the November presidential election when turnout is expected to be larger and [...]
2012 promises not one but a flurry of legalization initiatives in battleground states Colorado, California and perhaps Washington. Today, East Bay physician Dr. Frank Lucido, Mendocino activist Pebbles Trippett, as well as attorneys Joe Rogoway, Omar Figueroa, and William Panzer announce a second California pot initiative, following ‘Regulate Marijuana Like Wine’. The Repeal Cannabis Prohibition Act of 2012 would allow adults to legally possess up to three pounds of pot and grow a ten-by-ten-foot garden, David Downs reports in East Bay Express. It puts the California Department of Public Health in charge of administering the [...]
SAN BERNARDINO — Get out in the community and work with others to legalize marijuana was the message at Saturday’s Spring Gathering, a music festival and medical marijuana expo featuring such artists as Snoop Dog and Cypress Hill. The event also featured a panel discussion where speakers urged those attending to get involved politically and tell nonsmoking friends about the benefits of marijuana, Wes Woods II reports in the San Bernardino Sun. “Everything you can do,” said Stephen Gutwillig, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, including supporting cannabis movement organizations, sympathetic elected officials, giving [...]
George Mull opposed Proposition 19. Steve DeAngelo campaigned for it. Which made it all the more interesting at the recent CalNORML conference in Berkeley, where both said that medical cannabis distribution in California is — and I’m paraphrasing here — a total fucking mess. Mull is a Sacramento attorney who represents several NorCal collectives, and their struggles in assorted cities and counties have convinced him that statewide regulation is necessary. To that end, he co-founded the California Cannabis Association and actively campaigned against Prop. 19, which he feared would erode patient rights under Prop. 215 [...]
The Drug Policy Alliance gets top billing today in our belated video coverage of CalNORML’s marijuana reform conference in Berkeley. Ethan Nadelmann, DPA’s founder and executive director, and California director Stephen Gutwillig both possess a keen understanding of the political process, and their thoughts on legalization in 2012 deserve special attention. First and foremost is understanding that political compromises will be necessary to craft a winning initiative. Politics is a contact sport, after all, and purists can only watch from the sidelines. “It’s what’s winnable that goes as far as possible,” Nadelmann told the CalNORML [...]
Feb 132011
One of the joys of having your own blog is setting your own deadlines. Sure, it’s been a couple of weeks since the California NORML reform conference in Berkeley, but it’s taken that long to figure out my new video-editing software. So the game plan is to play catch-up over the next week or so with fresh videos from that uber-important conference; contact me if you like what you see and/or think I should stick to writing. ;o) Today’s selection features Joe Rogoway, a criminal defense attorney who’s involved with the California Cannabis Initiative, which [...]
Feb 012011
This weekend’s CalNORML reform conference in Berkeley sold out, prompting organizers to promise a larger venue next time. Their agenda was plenty big enough already, with complex issues facing medical cannabis advocates and proponents of legal, non-medical use. (Click here for CalNORML video coverage.) Steph Sherer, the national director of Americans for Safe Access, called for more civil discourse after Prop. 19 launched a war of words online. But she didn’t mince words when she targeted “outrageous” cannabis taxes, like the ones passed by conference host Berkeley and nine other California cities in November. “As [...]
How was your 2010? For the cannabis community, it was a wild flip of the calendar, with dispensaries opening and closing, police raiding, a medical cannabis luminary thrown in jail for meth charges — and we vaguely remember something about a legalization ballot measure. There’s still time yet before 2011 — who knows what the next few weeks will bring?. In any event, here’s your recap of the Year in Pot (to date), courtesy of Chris Roberts at S.F. Weekly’s Snitch blog. Regulated Edibles Means Hidden Cookies The year opened with ambitious rule changes from [...]
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