Oct 1, 2013 | MMJ News
By Nick Schou
At OC Weekly Blog
On Sept. 27, California Governor Jerry Brown finally signed a bill to legalize industrial hemp, the non-psychoactive close relative of marijuana that can be made into everything from paper and rope to fiberglass substitute, shampoo and toothpaste.
The last time hemp was legally grown in the U.S. was in 1957. For years, hemp products have been sold legally in California and other states, but the raw materials have had to be imported from Asia and Europe. The law signed by Brown on Friday was introduced by longtime medical marijuana backer Mark Leno, (D-San Francisco) and allows the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture to regulate hemp like any other crop.
But will the feds allow California to harvest the country’s first legal hemp crop in decades next year?It’s too early to tell, but given the fact that the Obama administration recently stated–via the so-called Cole memorandum–that it will not interfere in states that have well regulated recreational or medical marijuana industries, this could be a crop ready for legal harvest after all. Today, California Attorney General Kamala Harris is reportedly seeking answers from the U.S. Justice Department.
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Sep 18, 2013 | MMJ News
By Patrik Jonsson
At The Christian Science Monitor
Speculation is afoot after the Justice Department signaled it will mostly leave to states the responsibility to regulate use. Washington State and Colorado are already working out details of legal marijuana.
Now the question is… Is it possible that most US states will legalize marijuana for recreational use?
Already, Washington State and Colorado are working out detailed regulations for such use after voters last year approved the possession and consumption of personal amounts of pot. And 20 states, plus the District of Columbia, have allowed marijuana for medicinal purposes.
It’s been 17 years since California voters shocked the world by allowing doctors to write prescriptions for pot and almost exactly 31 years since Ronald Reagan assured the nation that “we’re going to win the war” on marijuana and other illicit drugs.
Now this summer, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has signaled that it will mostly leave to states the responsibility to regulate individuals’ use of pot. And a majority of Americans – 52 percent, according to the Pew Research Center, now agree with that ubiquitous reggae plea: “Le-ga-lize it.”
Yes, people are still being arrested for selling, even consuming, outlawed street drugs, and many members of society are still troubled by, among other things, new psychoactive compounds like the club drug “Molly,” which has been blamed for several recent deaths.
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Sep 15, 2013 | MMJ News
By Liz Halloran
at npr.com
When the Obama administration recently announced it wouldn’t challenge the decision by Colorado and Washington voters to fully legalize marijuana, criticism rained down.
The administration’s position, complained one Colorado congressman, was tantamount to allowing states to opt out of the federal law banning pot possession, cultivation and sale.
Other anti-legalization activists predicted that the administration was waving the white flag in the war on drugs.
The first claim is essentially true: The states will be creating their own regulatory regimes.
As for the idea of a surrender in the war on drugs, the reality is a little more complicated.
Whatever its effect, the administration’s hands-off position in Colorado and Washington will reverberate well beyond those states. And it could actually end up imposing some semblance of order in what drug law expert Mark Kleiman describes as the “Wild West” of medical marijuana.
“And that would be a potentially very, very good result,” says Kleiman, who previously worked in the Justice Department’s criminal division and is author of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know.
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Sep 10, 2013 | MMJ News
By Staff
At eNews Park Forrest
Sacramento, CA—(ENEWSPF)—September 9, 2013. A week after the Justice Department issued a memorandum, providing guidance on the role of federal law enforcement with respect to state marijuana laws, California legislators introduced a bill today that would bring long awaited regulations to medical marijuana businesses across the state. In the non-binding memo released a week ago Thursday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole claimed that as long as states implement “strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to control the cultivation, distribution, sale, and possession of marijuana,” the DOJ would defer to local and state law enforcement. In response, the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Control Act (MCRCA) was introduced today as AB 604 by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) and co-authored by Senators Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Mark Leno (D-San Francisco).
“Not only are patients in California barraged by virtually daily closures of dispensaries due to aggressive attacks by the Justice Department, but the patchwork system of local bans and regulations in the state leaves hundreds of thousands of patients without safe access to medical marijuana,” said Don Duncan, California Director of Americans for Safe Access, the country’s leading medical marijuana advocacy group. “It’s time for state legislators to roll up their sleeves and finish the job of implementing California’s medical marijuana law.” Although more than 50 localities have adopted dispensary regulations in California, more than 200 have banned the activity outright.
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Sep 9, 2013 | MMJ News
By Josh Crank
At Lawyers.com
U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, one of four federal attorneys behind the nearly two-year crackdown on medical marijuana in California, suggested her enforcement will continue despite new drug policy guidance from the Department of Justice.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced in late August that the federal government won’t sue to block state laws legalizing marijuana in various forms, including the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington. An accompanying memo issued by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole identified eight specific enforcement priorities on which the U.S. Attorneys should focus.
In the wake of the Justice Department memo, Haag spokesperson Lili Arauzhaase made a brief comment:
“At this time the US Attorney is not releasing any public statements. The office is evaluating the new guidelines and for the most part it appears that the cases that have been brought in this district are already in compliance with the guidelines. Therefore, we do not expect a significant change.”
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Aug 23, 2013 | MMJ News
By Chris Roberts
at SFWeekly.com
Medical marijuana dispensaries don’t cause crime, studies have shown. In fact, they may prevent it. So why is the federal Justice Department doing everything it can to make pot clubs ideal robbery targets?
Last year, the feds told credit card companies to stop doing business with California’s legal medical cannabis dispensaries. This was after they’d given the same directive to banks. And now that medical marijuana retailers are cash-only — and need a means to deliver large amounts of cash to entities like the state Board of Equalization — the feds have made them unsafe.
The DEA has informed security and armored car companies — a necessity in a cash-only business — to stop working with cannabis dispensaries or face penalties of money laundering and other charges, cannabis industry representatives announced yesterday.
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Aug 2, 2013 | MMJ News
By Wendy Kaufman
At NPR.org
A couple of guys with serious investment banking experience are moving into the marijuana business. They’ve launched the first multimillion-dollar private equity fund devoted entirely to what they like to call the “cannabis space.”
It started when Brendan Kennedy was working at the Silicon Valley Bank and learned of an entrepreneur who wanted to sell software for marijuana dispensaries. The idea piqued Kennedy’s interest. A few days later, a radio show about legalizing pot piqued it even more.
There’s an opportunity here, he thought, and picked up the phone and called his Yale business school buddy, Michael Blue. He told Blue he thought his friend needed to quit his job and come start a company in the cannabis industry.
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Jul 31, 2013 | MMJ News
By David Downs
At East Bay Express
Last week, the California Democratic Party took the historic step of endorsing statewide regulations for medical cannabis. Such regulations, however, are not going to happen this year, experts say. But this summer, a separate bill, SB 439, could represent yet another baby step toward regulation, thereby exemplifying the Golden State’s painful, decades-long evolution of medical cannabis law.
Authored by State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, SB 439 builds on past law and court rulings by explicitly legalizing cash sales of medical cannabis at dispensaries. The bill also would clear up a persistent legal gray area that allows police in places like Los Angeles and San Diego to imprison citizens for the same activities — dispensary sales — that are fully permitted in Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, and other cities that regulate dispensaries.
SB 439 would also further clarify the rules of the road for California dispensaries that had been spelled out previously by then-Attorney General Jerry Brown in 2008. But Brown’s “Guidelines for the Security and Non-Diversion of Marijuana Grown for Medical Use” are just that — guidelines — and do not have the force of law. Dispensaries don’t always to follow them, and those that do can still be imprisoned by anti-marijuana cops and prosecutors.
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Jul 23, 2013 | MMJ News
By David Downs
At East Bay Express
SoCal activist Lanny Swerdlow recently notified us that the California Democratic Party passed two historic resolutions on the issue of marijuana at its Executive Board meeting in Costa Mesa on Sunday, July 21.
“The first resolution called on President Obama to (1) respect the voters of Colorado and Washington and to not allow any federal interference in the enactment of their marijuana legalization initiatives, (2) end the federal raids on patients and providers in medical marijuana states and (3) appoint a commission to look into the reform of our nation’s marijuana laws.
“The 2nd resolution calls on our state legislature to enact statewide guidelines for medical marijuana distribution that respects the rights of local municipalities to regulate and license but will also provide marijuana ‘to all patients in all areas of California, rural as well as urban.’
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Jul 11, 2013 | MMJ News
By Chris Roberts
At SF Weekly
At the heart of most matters is a simple thing: money. Cash — and infinite sums of it — is the sinews of war, Cicero told us, and a scan of the technocapitalism headlines — acquisitions, fundings, and otherwise a list of zeroes punctuated by commas are tech news’ daily bread — shows that it’s the dollar that drives the Bay Area.
So, too, with the drug war reform movement. Call it the end of prohibition, call it legalization — you’re not calling it anything without the piles of money needed to run campaigns. Cozying up to capital may be a sign of how much the cannabis movement has matured and gone mainstream, or it could just be reality.
And today’s reality is that Silicon Valley and its youthful entrepreneurs have money to burn. Thus, when the next California marijuana legalization measure is before voters in 2016 (despite passionate efforts, there will be no legalization next year, barring a miracle) it will be brought to you by Silicon Valley capital — and specifically, capital connected to a certain social network. (more…)
