State News

The Obama administration announced it won’t go after pot users and providers in the states where marijuana is legal, but that doesn’t appear to have stopped the pain in Northern California. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, notorious for her persecution of medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivators in the Northern District of California, has indicated she has no plans to change course ...

The announcement by the U.S. Justice Department that the federal government won’t go after states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana has pot advocates elated. Some of them think it could spur their states to legalize in the next few years. “This is one of the most significant milestones in the movement toward ending marijuana prohibition in this country,” ...

While marijuana advocates cheered the new pot guidelines announced by the federal government, drug-war proponents in California insist the rules will open the floodgates to child drug abuse and other social ills. “Decades from now, the Obama administration will be remembered for undoing years of progress in reducing youth drug use in America,” Dr. Paul R. Chabot of the Coalition ...

The states and the feds, partners in pot? That’s the vision of one California professor who believes the two warring entities could make peace and pave the way for regulated marijuana. In a paper written for the Journal of Drug Policy and Analysis, Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at the University of California Los Angeles, argues that states with ...

California residents got a mixed bag out of their Legislature this year when it comes to medical marijuana law, according to NORML, the pot-reform group. There were two major cannabis bills up for consideration in this year’s session, and both were scrapped before they reached the floors of the state House and Senate. One would have been harmful to many ...

California police groups, determined to kill medical marijuana in California after 17 years of failure, have sunk a bill that would have enacted some of the very regulations they complain are lacking. These policy narcs have taken the formal position that there is no such thing as medical pot, no matter what most doctors and their own state marijuana laws ...

California’s ban on weed is 100 years old this month. And it’s an open question how much longer it’ll last. It’s been exactly a century since the state enacted a law banning what was then known as loco-weed, according to the Contra Costa Times. Massachusetts was the first state to prohibit pot, in 1911, but California was the first Western ...

Gil Kerlikowske, noted opponent of California’s failed attempt to legalize pot in 2010, is leaving his position as U.S. drug czar to become head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The announcement was made in early August Kerlikowske has served as head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy since 2009, when he was appointed by President Obama. Soon ...

It’s a pot smoker’s dream and an opponent’s worst nightmare. That’s right, the marijuana vending machine could soon be coming to a location near you. Vending machines serve almost everything imaginable: candy, soda, past-due milk and gas-station-quality lunch products, to name just a few. But weed? Thanks to Dispense Labs of Aliso Viejo, it could soon be stocked behind glass ...

California Democrats: “Time to Legalize” California Democrats have plenty on their hands when it comes to marijuana. But that hasn’t stopped them from taking a stand on behalf of other states that are loosening the reins on pot law. The California Democratic Party passed a resolution in July expressing support for the full legalization of weed in Washington and Colorado. ...