Will California be the next to go? Many drug-policy experts say yes: The Golden State is primed to become the next to legalize pot. And it could happen as early as next year. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have already voted to make weed legal. More are likely to follow suit in coming years, including Alaska, Nevada and Oregon. But ...

Taking a decided step backward, the City of Napa has shut the door on pot. The Napa City Council voted 3-2 Dec. 4 to ban medical marijuana dispensaries within city limits. Council members voted to repeal a 3-year-old ordinance that, had it been implemented, would have allowed a single dispensary in Napa. The vote went against a recommendation by the ...

Oakland, long a battleground in California’s war over pot, may soon get a new medical marijuana dispensary. City officials recently gave the go-ahead to a dispensary that would be run by the Tidewater Patients Group, an organization tied to a former aide to an Oakland City Council member. The shop would be located at 3007 Telegraph Ave., in the Pill ...

The announcement was clear, and it brought joy to the hearts of medical marijuana supporters and tokers everywhere: The federal government would no longer interfere with states that legalize marijuana and would no longer go after cannabis businesses that follow state law. Yet some high-ranking government officials responsible for enforcing this new policy don’t seem willing to acknowledge it. Case ...

The Obama administration has promised not to interfere with state and local regulation of legal marijuana. Now officials in the Bay Area are asking the president to make good on his word. In early November the Alameda County supervisors adopted a resolution that asks federal law enforcement to stop harassing lawful dispensaries in the county. The resolution recognizes the benefits ...

Napa appears likely to close its doors to medical marijuana dispensaries, but the city planning commission isn’t happy about it. Commission members voted 3-2 Oct. 31 to recommend the Napa City Council not repeal the city’s three-year-old medical pot ordinance. The ordinance, passed unanimously in 2010, has allowed a single dispensary to operate in the city under stringent regulations. If ...

In a sign of at least temporary relief for property owners who rent to pot dispensaries, federal prosecutors in California have dropped several lawsuits that sought to seize landlords’ property because they did business with pot providers. “This is an important step in the civil rights battle being fought by seriously ill Californians who have been recommended medical marijuana by ...

The government may be closed for the time being, but the federal crackdown on medical weed won’t miss a beat. That’s because the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Obama administration’s front line in the war on sane drug policy, has furloughed very few of its workers. Under the contingency plan carried out by the Justice Department, 87 percent of the ...

The City of Berkeley took a pass Sept. 17 on a vote to increase the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. Instead, members of the City Council asked the Berkeley Medical Cannabis Commission and the city manager’s office to draft changes to regulations that govern collectives. That could include rules regarding the size of collectives, their operating hours, ...

Recreational Users vs. Medical Users It was never a match made in heaven. On the one hand, California pot advocates eager to legalize and prove to the world that marijuana is a safe recreational drug. On the other, wary medical marijuana supporters worried their recreational cousins could get rowdy and cost everyone good grace with the public. They didn’t fit ...