Browsing California

Long Beach City Council Voted To Regulate Dispensaries In a unanimous vote, members of the Long Beach City Council instructed the City Attorney to start working on a new ordinance, which would regulate the amount of collectives that are able to operate within the city’s limits. Tuesday’s vote came just one day after US District Judge Audrey Collins ruled that Long Beach officials weren’t required to add an initiative for medical marijuana in their upcoming ballot in April. Her decision was based on semantics; despite collecting over 43,000 signatures, the wording of the petition did not request consideration for general …

California Legislature Aims To Regulate Medical Cannabis Lawmakers in California have reacted to the directives in the recent Department of Justice memorandum. In an attempt to answer the call for effective medical cannabis regulation, two identical bills were introduced this week: AB 604 and SB 69. “Because both bills are the same, only one of them needs to pass in order to become law.” — CA NORML The first bill to surface, AB 604, was introduced by Assembly-member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco). He is the Chair of …

The 3rd Annual International Cannabis & Hemp Expo (INTCHE) is being held at the San Francisco Civic Center Plaza on September 7th, 2013. INTCHE’s day-long event next weekend will run from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. in front of City Hall. The venue will cost $20 to get in and will feature over 100 vendors as well as notable speakers such as Former Mexican President Vicente Fox. The former president will be speaking about the impact of legalizing marijuana in the war against the drug cartels. Other speakers include horticulturist, author & publisher, Ed Rosenthal, and San Francisco Assemblyman …

Paul Stephan is an American glass artist that has been blowing glass for a little over ten years out of his small scale glassblowing studio, ‘Micro’s Workshop’ in Milwaukee, WI. This past weekend, Paul’s work was on display at a free art show hosted by the GooseFire Gallery in Long Beach, CA. The show was appropriately named ‘It’s A ME MICRO” and the theme was an ode to the side-scrolling video games of the 1980’s; specifically Mario Bros. Micro’s work — ‘Micro’ is his artist name — featured layered scenes of the old games …

On Monday, former Mexican president Vicente Fox met with marijuana advocates in San Francisco, CA, to join them in urging the United States and his own country to decriminalize the sale and recreational use of cannabis. According to the SF Examiner, the former Mexican president is for the legalization of all drugs, not just cannabis. “I am all for legalizing drugs, in the same way Portugal did,” said Fox, referring to Portugal’s decriminalization of all drugs in 2001. “The cost of the war is becoming unbearable — too high for Mexico, for Latin America …

The city of Berkeley, California, filed a federal court claim to block a federal forfeiture action against its largest and eldest dispensary Wednesday. Last year, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, Melinda Haag, attempted to seize the Oakland and San Jose properties of Harborside Health Center. Haag targeted the dispensary’s landlord for asset forfeiture, an overworked bullying tactic used by the feds in their war on legal, state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries. This May, her office filed a similar action against a property leased by Berkeley Patients Group. The complaint stated that the dispensary was breaking …

The 4th annual HIGH TIMES San Francisco Bay Area Medical Cannabis Cup came to a successful end Sunday night after a long weekend of countless dabs and tons of entertaining guests. The two day-long expo took place at Craneway Pavilion right outside of San Francisco in Richmond, CA, where approximately ten thousand medical marijuana patients came out to again celebrate the best medicine on the planet, cannabis. The event featured lectures from a ‘highly’ educated panel of guests on everything from legal issues and cultivation, to the in’s and out’s of edibles and infused products. Three designated ‘medication’ areas were …

Did you get your tickets to the fourth-annual High Times San Francisco Bay Area Medical Cannabis Cup yet? The two-day expo will begin next Saturday, June 22, at The Craneway Pavillion at 1414 Harbour Way South, Richmond, CA. The event will feature a number of activism and cultivation seminars from HIGH TIMES editors and talks from many other familiar faces in the industry. “The headliners Saturday night’s party are Ghostface Killah, Raekwon and GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan.” Included is a Saturday night ‘Homegrown Party’ for all adults ages 18+ hosted by …

On Tuesday, Los Angeles voters passed Proposition D, an ordinance that will close hundreds of dispensaries and raise the taxes on those that will remain open. Nearly 63% of Los Angeles voters casted their vote in favor of Proposition D on Tuesday’s mayoral election ballot, while only 37% opposed. The proposition will limit the number of medical dispensaries to the ~135 who opened prior to 2007, a sharp decline from the 1000+ that are currently serving qualified patients. “We’ve had a great amount of difficulty over the past few years on how to come up with a consensus …

The patients of Los Angeles will decide the fate of hundreds of marijuana dispensaries on May 21st as three competing medical marijuana measures are up for vote on the ballot – D, E, and F. Approximately seven days from now on Tuesday, May 21st, your rights to safe access as a medical marijuana patient in Los Angeles will again be at risk. Despite repeated efforts by the city to both limit and ban medical marijuana dispensaries in the past three years, there are an estimated 850 dispensaries (possibly upwards of 1,500) operating in Los Angeles. Next Tuesday, three proposed ordinances …