A U.S. appellate court ruled in August that marijuana users, including medical tokers in California, may not own guns. The ruling, handed down Aug. 31 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, prohibits even legitimate medical pot patients from owning firearms. A panel including three of the court’s judges upheld a federal law barring all gun ownership ...

Marijuana policy reformers in California say they weren’t in the least surprised by the DEA’s decision to leave the drug in schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, a category of substances deemed more dangerous, more addictive, and less medically useful than cocaine and methamphetamine. “We’re not shocked at this,” said Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry ...

Activists are working to make marijuana legal in the November statewide election, and the odds are increasingly good they will succeed, according to recent media reports. Several groups are pushing petitions to legalize the drug, and if any make the ballot, they stand a good chance of passing. One effort, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, has already pulled in ...

In all likelihood, Californians will vote in November on whether they want to legalize marijuana for recreational use. They stand a good chance of saying yes. But when it comes to the future of cannabis, nothing is guaranteed. Circumstances can go south in a matter of days or weeks, depending on the state of politics. That’s why the 2016 presidential ...

A federal judge handed an important victory to medical marijuana advocates in October. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer lifted a temporary injunction that blocked a Bay Area medical weed dispensary from selling pot to patients. The ruling means the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana and its founder, Lynette Shaw, may resume their business. More importantly, the decision applied a ...

A federal prosecutor whose district covers the Bay Area has quit her post, handing marijuana proponents a big victory. Melinda Haag served as the U.S. attorney for the San Francisco area, a position she used to launch aggressive legal attacks against dispensaries, growers, and other medical weed providers. Haag announced her resignation in late July; she will leave effective Sept. ...

A onetime marijuana entrepreneur, among the flashiest in California, pleaded guilty to cannabis-related charges in federal court July 1. Yan Ebyam, 37, who was once a major player in MMJ, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. He now faces between six and eight years in prison if the judge accepts his plea deal with prosecutors. ...

A man suspected of trying to rob a medical marijuana dispensary in Southern California was shot dead by a security guard June 25, authorities said. According to witnesses and police, two men entered a dispensary on Century Boulevard in Los Angeles shortly after noon and opened fire. The shop, “Nature’s Cure,” is located near LAX. The two men were met ...

An attempt to regulate California’s chaotic medical marijuana system moved a step closer to becoming law in May. A bill sponsored by state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Democrat from San Francisco, cleared the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee May 23. It now moves to a full vote in the Assembly in the last week of May. California voters first adopted MMJ at ...

Efforts to legalize weed in California fizzled this year, but the cannabis world is already regrouping for 2016. Which is to say, most of the community is regrouping. Surprising as it may seem, not everyone who supports access to marijuana thinks the drug should be legalized for recreational use. In fact, quite a lot of medical pot patients think the ...