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Thomas Liberty lost nearly everything in September 2015, when the disastrous Butte fire swept his property in Northern California’s interior. But the worst loss may have been his marijuana garden. “It just hurts to see it,” Liberty told The Sacramento Bee while surveying his homestead. The fire, the seventh largest in California history, burned 71,000 acres, incinerated 860 structures – ...

The push to legalize marijuana in California gained an important ally in June, as a Marin County congressman endorsed a public initiative that will likely appear on the ballot in November. U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a San Rafael Democrat, announced June 9 that he would back the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, a proposed law that would allow cannabis for ...

Police in Sonoma County raided several grow sites in June, seizing equipment, shutting down two popular marijuana brands, and closing a lab used to make cannabis products sold across California. Santa Rosa police arrested Dennis Franklin Hunter, 43, the owner of Absolute Xtracts and Care by Design, both marijuana brands. Authorities said the two companies were part of an illegal ...

Marijuana users in San Diego could soon be paying more for the drug if voters approve a local tax on the industry. The plan, sponsored by City Council Member Mark Kersey, proposes a sales tax on all cannabis businesses. If Kersey succeeds with his ordinance, voters would decide the issue in a future election. Kersey’s tax would start at 8 ...

California Democrats threw their support behind a public referendum that would legalize marijuana for recreational use. The state’s Democratic Party voted in June to endorse the ballot initiative, which would make it legal for adults over 21 to buy, possess, and use up to an ounce of marijuana per person. They could also grow up to four plants at home, ...

Two gunmen were in critical condition after the owner of a Los Angeles-area medical marijuana business shot them during an alleged robbery, police said. The shooting at the dispensary occurred at about 10:40 p.m. June 7 in the Walnut Park community in unincorporated Los Angeles County, according to officials at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The dispensary owner told ...

Voters in Sacramento rejected a plan to tax marijuana cultivation, even though the proposal won a majority at the ballot box. Voters in the city strongly backed the initiative to tax retail cannabis cultivation and use the revenue to pay for youth programs. The plan won 65.2 percent of the vote, but the initiative needed more than 66 percent to ...

The 2016 Cannabis Business Summit and Expo is expected to draw thousands of entrepreneurs, speakers, and vendors to Oakland in June. The Expo will run from June 20 to 22 at the Oakland Marriott City Center. It’s part networking event, part classroom, and part sales floor, billed as the “ONLY national event where you will have an opportunity to meet ...

Local officials in the San Joaquin Valley are cracking down on medical marijuana, but a pair of local cannabis “nuns” say they won’t cave to the pressure. Actually, they’re not nuns, at least not in the religious sense. They have no affiliation with the Vatican or any other church. Their purpose is growing pot, not spreading the Gospel. But they’re ...

Legal marijuana offers big possibilities to many people in California, from pot farmers and dispensary owners to lawyers and accountants. But the modern-day green rush is proving especially helpful to one struggling community in the desert. The Inland Empire city of Desert Hot Springs voted in 2014 to legalize medical marijuana farms, making it the first local government in the ...