California voters rejected legal pot at the polls in 2010, but there’s a group of advocates hopeful they can reverse that trend in time for next year. Marijuana Legalization on The Ballot In early August, the California Cannabis, Hemp and Health Initiative filed the California Hemp Act 2014 with the state attorney general’s office. This voter initiative would go on ...

A recent order sent out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency could put many California dispensary operators and employees in danger. The DEA issued an order to all security and armored car companies to stop servicing marijuana dispensaries. The order applies everywhere, regardless of the legality of medical or recreational pot, but it has special importance in California. The risks ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

Los Angeles is busy cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries under a law approved by voters in May. Shortly after the ordinance passed, the city informed hundreds of pot dispensaries across the city that they would have to close their doors. Otherwise they would face asset seizure and prosecution. Now the City Attorney’s Office has published a list that specifies ...

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 ...

An amendment to a bill in Congress could soon make life much easier for patients and providers of medical marijuana in states where MMJ is allowed by law. It the legislation advances and becomes law, it would mark a major turning point for the medical weed industry in California and other states with troubled MMJ programs. President Obama has said ...