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The world’s “Biggest Pot Shop,” a Bay Area cultural and political staple, has escaped the claws of the federal government yet again. Federal officials agreed in May to give up their four-year attempt to shutter Harborside Health Center of Oakland, a shop with more than 100,000 patients. Local leaders announced the decision early in the month. The news was music ...

Marijuana legalization just picked up a major supporter. Long-shot presidential candidate Bernie Sanders spoke in the Bay Area in May and said he was 100 percent behind the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. That measure is the leading contender to legalize the drug in November. The AUMA has already been cleared to appear on the ballot. Sanders endorsed the proposed ...

Backers of a petition to legalize marijuana for recreation are moving closer to success in November. Organizers of the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), a public ballot initiative that would make recreational cannabis legal throughout California, say they are almost ready to hand in the signatures necessary to put the question before voters. The proposal would allow adults 21 ...

They call it the “California Way,” and they want to hold onto it. A group that supports small-scale marijuana farming is out with a series of billboards, bus ads, and YouTube videos promoting the mom-and-pop approach to the cannabis industry. “Craft farmers,” the spots say. “Small batch. Sustainable. The California Way.” This approach has indeed dominated marijuana cultivation in the ...

It has been a long time since Ricardo Montes and Luke Scarmazzo opened their medical marijuana dispensary in Modesto. But they are still paying the price. Montes and Scarmazzo are serving mandatory 20-year prison sentences for doing something that is now widely accepted: selling medicinal pot out of a retail store. Times have changed around them, but their circumstances have ...

If there’s one thing both marijuana advocates and their opponents agree on, it’s that stoned driving is a bad idea. But they don’t always agree on how to deal with the problem. A California lawmaker has introduced legislation that would crack down on high driving by allowing a sort of saliva-based Breathalyzer for cannabis. The idea, says GOP state Sen. ...

Late last year, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to create a new system of rules governing medical marijuana in the state. The same regulations could play a part in full legalization, should voters approve it in November. Now, the newly appointed head of the agency lawmakers created, the Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation, says she thinks “there is a ...

Marijuana legalization has been on a roll in recent years, but experts warned in April that the movement could be setting itself up for a disastrous November. The Drug Policy Alliance said legalization proponents in at least nine states are “dangerously over-extended,” adding that there are too few advocates stretched too thin with too little money and too little time. ...

When it comes to legal marijuana, California is the prize to beat all prizes. Four states (Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska) plus the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for recreational use within the last four years. But the Golden State could leave them all in the dust. Reform groups are pushing to put the legalization question on the statewide ...

Stoners are lazy, confused, lost in the clouds. Send them on a quick errand and you might not see them again for a week. Such are the stereotypes, anyway. The first annual 420 Games fun run in Santa Monica was designed to bust those myths, but the pothead runners also took time to play along with them for laughs. The ...