State News

An Inland Empire dispensary owner who is serving a 10-year federal prison sentence lost his bid to win a new trial. Aaron Sandusky, who ran the shuttered G3 Holistic Inc. and its dispensaries in Moreno Valley, Upland and Colton, sought to overturn his 2013 conviction. But in March the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his arguments. The court ...

California’s second-in-command has taken a firm stand against his boss when it comes to legal marijuana. In an interview with MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow Daily March 18, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom tore into Gov. Jerry Brown for denigrating tokers and calling legalization a danger to national security. “With respect to Gov. Brown, who I admire greatly and am looking forward to ...

One of the last surviving attempts to put legalization on the November ballot is officially dead, though it was given up for as much weeks ago. That leaves just one petition in the running, and that doesn’t have a chance. The California Cannabis Hemp Initiative, which would have legalized the possession and cultivation of almost unlimited amounts of weed, failed ...

Clothing retailer, Tilly’s, bowed to pressure in March and pulled a line of marijuana-themed items from its stores in Southern California. The company said in an email to a parent group that it would remove the clothing from its stores in Orange and Riverside counties. It wasn’t clear whether it would be removed from other stores, though most items were ...

An attempt by police groups to regulate medical marijuana in California is drawing the opposition of some cannabis advocates, though it may also be bringing the two sides closer together. Among other provisions, a clause in Senate Bill 1262 would ban marijuana concentrates such as hash oil and wax. It would also require that medical pot recommendations come only from ...

The California Democratic Party threw its weight behind legal marijuana this month. Without debate, delegates at the party’s annual convention in Los Angeles voted by voice to “support the legalization, regulation and taxation of marijuana, in a manner similar to that of tobacco or alcohol,” as the Democratic platform now states. The vote drew cheers from the hundreds of delegates ...

After 18 years of resistance, law enforcement groups in California are showing signs they may be willing to work with the medical marijuana community to make MMJ work. California voters approved medical marijuana in 1996 when they passed the Compassionate Use Act. The legislature implemented several aspects of the program in 2003, but MMJ has remained largely unregulated in California ...

Gov. Jerry Brown says he wants to wait and see what happens in Colorado and Washington State before California tries to legalize pot. Brown appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” March 2 and discussed the future of marijuana law in the Golden State. The governor, once famous for his liberalism, has surprised Californians with his moderate stands on many issues. ...

Federal agents are cracking down on a marijuana product in California that they’re leaving alone just a few states over. The product is an increasingly popular extract known as wax, honey oil or hash oil, and it comes with a dangerous recipe, an incredibly intense high, and the inevitable scary warnings from law enforcement. “There is no weed out there ...

Backers of the last remaining effort to legalize weed in California this year are seeking new funding to get their initiative on the ballot. They say they need $2 million, and if they fall short, legalization will be completely off the table until 2016. “The only thing that stands in the way of legalization in 2014 is money, and it’s ...