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At least she didn’t try to bring it in her carry-on. Security officials at Oakland International Airport discovered 81 pounds of packaged marijuana inside three suitcases checked for a flight to Mississippi May 2, they said. The woman who checked the luggage, 26-year-old Anastasia Murdock, was arrested and booked into the Santa Rita Jail on charges of possessing marijuana for ...

Legal weed is a dead issue for now in California. Voters won’t get a chance to decide it until at least 2016. In the meantime, a splintered community of marijuana proponents will have two years to come together, pool their resources, and present voters with a legalization proposal that has a chance of passing. The question remains: Can they do ...

It’s now official: California won’t see legalization until at least 2016. The last of four attempts to put legal weed on the ballot this November fell short in April, putting the final nail in the coffin for major reform in 2014. The California Cannabis Hemp Initiative, also known as the Jack Herer initiative, had until April 18 to gather enough ...

A proposed law that would place new regulations on California’s medical marijuana industry cleared a key hurdle in the state legislature in April. The state Assembly’s Public Safety Committee approved the bill April 22. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a Democrat from San Francisco, introduced it. It’s one of two such proposals under consideration in the legislature. The other recently won approval ...

A rigid attempt to regulate medical marijuana in California cleared an important Senate panel in April. The bill, backed by law enforcement groups and opposed by the state’s largest medical group, would license dispensaries and impose tight new restrictions on doctors who recommend cannabis to patients. It would also make it easier for local governments to ban pot shops. The ...

At least eight people were arrested on felony charges during 4/20 celebrations in San Francisco, police said. Thousands of stoners and marijuana proponents gathered on Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park, near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, to mark the pot smokers’ holiday. They lit up at 4:20 p.m., the sacred moment for tokers. Smokers and users were joined by scores of ...

A California lawmaker is pushing new rules on medical marijuana that could make life much easier for the industry and keep the feds out of everyone’s hair. After trying and failing more than once before, state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano of San Francisco has introduced a bill he hopes will provide the regulation MMJ badly needs in California. “I’m cautiously optimistic,” ...

California is struggling through its worst drought in memory, and observers say marijuana growers aren’t helping the problem. The Golden State produces most of America’s weed, including the state’s own massive medical marijuana supply. Even with Colorado and Washington turning to local growers for their legal pot, California will remain a major exporter of cannabis. Most of that marijuana is ...

One of California’s last remaining attempts to legalize pot in 2014 has apparently secured a last-minute financial backer who could give the proposal the juice it needs to make the ballot. Advocates behind the Marijuana Control, Legalization and Revenue Act announced in a press release that they had found a backer among “California’s over 100 billionaires” who has committed $10 ...

Early in 2013, the California Supreme Court upheld a total ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in Riverside. It was a watershed case, allowing more than 200 local governments to cement their own bans and opening the doors to bans in other communities. But almost a year later, it’s not clear how much has really changed in the wake of that ...