Kharla Vezzetti 
A lobbying day on Capitol Hill preceded the international Drug Policy Alliance conference in Washington DC yesterday, buoyed by the fact that HR 3713, the Sentencing Reform Act, passed the House Judiciary Committee unanimously that morning. Cal NORML deputy director and others from Northern California met with aides to Rep. John Garamendi, Mark DeSaulnier, and …
San Francisco, Oct 20 – In a victory for marijuana patients’ rights, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency voted to amend a new drug testing program for taxi drivers so as to excuse positive test results for marijuana given a physician’s recommendation or approval The SFMTA was under pressure to approve a $4 million, multi-year drug …
September 2015 – California recorded 19,711 marijuana arrests in 2014, down slightly from 20,346 in 2013. This included 13,300 felonies and 6,411 misdemeanors. (An unknown additional number of Californians were cited for non-criminal possession infractions.) Arrests have been steadily declining since 2008 and are now at their lowest level since 1966. Latinos led the state …
Also see: Summary of Expected Emergency MAUCRSA Regulations and Temporary License Application September 29, 2017 – California’s three cannabis licensing authorities have announced the official withdrawal of the draft medical cannabis regulations that were proposed in late spring. The three cannabis licensing authorities will develop emergency regulations based new laws that passed this year, and will …
UPDATE: SB 643 passes CA Assembly by vote of 54-11 after 15 mins. debate (mostly on the 600-sq. ft. buffer, which locals can override.) If signed by the Governor, the act would give the Department of Consumer Affairs the sole authority to create, issue, renew, discipline, suspend, or revoke licenses for the transportation and storage, …
SACRAMENTO August 28, 2015 – The newly amended AB 266 proposed by the Governor’s Office appears to be an improvement on its predecessor. In particular, it allows deliveries everywhere except where specifically banned; the previous version required the government of the receiving locaity to authorize deliveries beforehand. While the new bill still has some problems, …
Large plants of the type grown by Humboldt farmers The types of plants eradicated on public lands UPDATE April 2021 – Legal Cannabis Cultivation’s Footprint Sinks Common Assumptions About Comparative Water Use A report from New Frontier Data in partnership with Resource Innovation Institute and the University of California, Berkeley concluded that “while the state’s orchards …
July 28 – About 40 protesters turned up this morning for a press conference and rally to protest the Sacramento Board of Supervisors’ recent move to declare all marijuana cultivation outside of their nine-plant indoor limit a waste of water. Under an amendment to the county’s state-mandated water conservation ordinance, Supervisor Roberta MacGlashan introduced a …
October 2, 2015 – The Central Valley Water Board has issued a general order about marijuana cultivation in the Central district. The North Coast region issued their order and best practices in August. On Friday, July 17, a Marijuana Working Group meeting was convened by a “joint” committee of the California Water Board and Fish …
July 6, 2015 – California Governor Jerry Brown has signed Assembly Bill 258 (Levine), to end discrimination against medical marijuana patients who need organ transplants. The bill was sponsored by Americans for Safe Access, and also endorsed by California NORML, which gathered signatures on a petition to Governor Brown at the Grateful Dead Santa Clara …