Health

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 ...

Los Angeles is known for a lot of things, but two in particular, one good, the other bad: medical marijuana dispensaries and a large and growing population of homeless people. Now one of those things could be used to help deal with the other. City leaders passed a $2 billion program in 2016 that is designed to give homeless residents ...

It’s hard to forget the real estate crash of 2008, but that institutional memory may be fading in California as marijuana businesses drive up property values across the state. A report in the San Francisco Chronicle notes that property values are rising in many places thanks to new regulations governing the medical marijuana industry. The bubble is growing in small ...

Prosecutors in Orange County have charged three Santa Ana police officers with stealing snacks and smashing surveillance cameras while raiding a marijuana dispensary in 2015. Each of the officers was charged with petty theft, while one was also charged with vandalism for destroying five closed-circuit cameras. The cameras were destroyed “by banging and smashing the camera lenses,” according to the ...

Attorneys for the City of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit in February seeking to close a cannabis delivery service that opened in 2014. The city attorney’s office announced the suit Feb. 19, saying it’s part of a long-running effort to limit the number of medical cannabis dispensaries in the city. In 2013, voters passed Proposition D, a law designed to ...

California voters approved medical marijuana 20 years ago, and the system they created has become a staple of the state’s healthcare community. Indeed, medicinal cannabis has proved so popular over the years that voters will likely legalize the drug for recreation in the November election. But why, exactly, do Californians use the stuff? What conditions are they treating, and how ...

Medical marijuana proponents in California are pushing back against a proposed sales tax that could substantially increase prices for patients. The proposal would impose a 15 percent sales tax on all medical cannabis sales, plus any local fees or taxes. In Los Angeles, where patients already pay a 5 percent local tax, the cost of a $200 ounce of mid-quality ...

Medical marijuana is big money in California. Now a group of lawmakers are pushing to put more of that cash in state coffers. Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat, sponsored legislation in February that would create a new 15 percent sales tax on medicinal cannabis sales. Introduced Feb. 10, the bill would impose the first statewide tax on the drug. Medical ...

They wear habits. They refer to themselves as “sisters.” They are known by those who know them as “nuns.” But they are not that exactly. These women, the “Sisters of the Valley,” run an Etsy business that provides so-called CBD marijuana to sick patients. And they hope they can save those patients from a wave of local cultivation bans sweeping ...

Communities across California are moving quickly to ban marijuana cultivation as new medical cannabis regulations take effect. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the new rules last year, and they are set to go into effect soon. The legislation came 20 years after California became the first state to allow medicinal marijuana. The regulations allow local governments to limit or ban cultivation, ...