"Groove on! Groove on!" blared from speakers outside a gray warehouse in Santa Ana. Inside, a line of 60 people snaked through the shop, waiting to be helped by a budtender. "We were bombarded!" said Robert Taft Jr., founder of the marijuana dispensary 420 Central. When the shop opened at 7 a.m. Monday -- Day 1 of legal recreational pot sales in California -- a handful of people had already lined up. Within two hours, more than 100 customers, some still nursing holiday hangovers, had made purchases. As they walked out, Taft shouted, "Enjoy your new freedom!" [continues 1117 words]
Marijuana legalization arrives Monday in California with lots of hoopla, but only a handful of cities will initially have retail outlets ready to sell recreational pot. By Thursday afternoon, California had issued only 42 retail licenses. Another 150 applications were pending and regulators planned to work a second straight weekend to review them. Los Angeles and San Francisco were late to approve local regulations, meaning no recreational pot shops there will open their doors Monday. The lucky few outlets with licenses -- mainly in San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, Palm Springs area and Santa Cruz -- think they have an edge being first out of the gate. [continues 702 words]
I don't understand why medical marijuana is taxable. Other medicines are not taxable, so why is marijuana? According to the MarketWatch blog, "The case arose after the board audited Berkeley Patients Group Inc. in Northern California. The marijuana dispensary argued that the $51 million of marijuana it sold between July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2007, should be exempt from sales tax. The board disagreed because state tax code doesn't have a specific exemption for the marijuana, and said the dispensary owes more than $6.4 million in back taxes and interest." [continues 83 words]
In the latest sign that the federal Justice Department is waving the white flag in the war on cannabis, federal prosecutors have agreed to drop a nearly four-year-long effort to shut down Oakland-based mega-dispensary Harborside Health Center, the dispensary announced Tuesday. Harborside, by reputation and by self-declaration the biggest seller of medical cannabis in the world, seemed to be skating through a short-lived and somewhat half-hearted crackdown on California medical cannabis sellers - a pushback that began in 2011, and eventually closed one-third of the legal cannabis sellers in San Francisco - until just before the Fourth of July in 2012, when federal prosecutors filed suit to seize the Oakland Embarcadero property that houses the dispensary. [continues 795 words]
Jean Kennedy has a BS in biology and a master's in special education. Now, she's trying to decide what to do with her third degree: a certificate of achievement from Oaksterdam University, the Harvard Business School of marijuana. "I'm Italian," said Kennedy, 56, a retired high school biology teacher with graying hair and a heavy New York accent. "You know Italians, we grow tomatoes. Maybe I'll grow some plants." Horticulture 102 is one of the many subjects Kennedy studies at Oaksterdam, whose storefront campus is set amid the hip cafes, restaurants and cannabis dispensaries of downtown Oakland. Founded in 2007, the school sees itself as a training ground for citizen advocates in the fight to legalize marijuana. [continues 1416 words]
The Feds Are at the Crossroads, the Industry Is Emboldened, and 2016 Election Limbo Begins. Medical marijuana's public enemy number one in the Bay Area - US Attorney Melinda Haag - will exit stage-left in September, brightening the future for local business owners and patients, but also increasing the haze. Haag's exit ushers in a period of legal limbo for Northern California. Locals will not know who their next permanent US Attorney will be until some time after the fall 2016 presidential election, when the next president nominates him or her. "The bigger question is not, 'Who replaces Melinda Haag?' it's 'Who replaces Barack Obama?'" said Dan Riffle, a Marijuana Policy Project lobbyist in Washington, DC. [continues 749 words]
Last week, Melinda Haag, who served as the United States Attorney in San Francisco since 2010, announced her resignation effective Sept. 1. During her five years as the federal Justice Department's local prosecutor, the former corporate lawyer became the only local official I ever saw mocked in effigy. A ten-foot-tall Haag caricature was a regular sight at protests in the Bay Area in 2012 and 2013. When not in public, the Haag effigy lived at cannabis industry trade school Oaksterdam University, one of the many marijuana businesses to suffer under Haag. Oaksterdam was lucky: the business stayed open after a federal law enforcement raid. [continues 873 words]
Organized Labor Helped Cannabis Evolve From a Movement to a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry. Now, Organized Labor Is Working to Ensure It Keeps a Piece of the Action. Cannabis was good to Debby Goldsberry. The time she spent in the late 1980s and early '90s following the Grateful Dead on tour, passing out photocopied fliers that agitated for marijuana legalization, led to a high-paying career. After California legalized medical cannabis in 1996, Goldsberry cofounded one of the state's first major marijuana businesses, Berkeley Patients Group. [continues 5417 words]
The Bay Area Medical Cannabis Industry Seems to Be Taking Two Steps Back for Every Step Forward Lately. Notes From Four of the Front Lines. Berkeley could add a fourth licensed brick-and-mortar dispensary by the end of the year, now that the March 20 deadline to apply for such a business license has passed. The city has three existing permitted dispensaries - Berkeley Patients Group, BPCC, and CBCB - a number that's been unchanged in a decade, said Charles Pappas, a member of the Berkeley Medical Cannabis Commission. [continues 804 words]
How the GOP Led the Way in Defunding the War on Medical Weed. The American people, in a strange way, can thank Republicans for the historic end to the federal war on medical marijuana. Due to a weird mix of events, newly elected House Republicans got a chance to do something they wanted - represent their constituents' viewpoints on legalizing medical marijuana - by essentially doing nothing at all late last year. Central to this story is former tequila-drinking party-boy surfer from Huntington Beach named Dana Rohrabacher - a Congressional Republican - capitalized on powerful currents in the wake of the November 2014 election to float a bill to defund the federal war on medical marijuana. Astonishingly, it passed. [continues 754 words]
Sometimes you know you've lost. Other times, you have to be dragged from the field, long after the lights are shut off and the crowd has gone home. Intervention is needed right now in the East Bay, the only place in the United States where the federal Justice Department is trying to seize private property used for a legal enterprise. Emphasis on "trying." Since 2012, United States Attorney for Northern California Melinda Haag has been attempting to put a pair of pot clubs out of business: Berkeley Patients Group and Oakland's Harborside Health Center. Prosecutors in Haag's office filed asset forfeiture proceedings against the two city-licensed, taxpaying dispensaries in 2013 and 2012. [continues 873 words]
Proponents of Legalizing Cannabis in California in 2016 Remain Deeply Divided. The prospect of marijuana legalization in California looks anything but certain after a major meeting late last week in Oakland in which leading activists showed how divided they remain. In fact, the possibility of ending the 78-year-old prohibition on cannabis appears to have increased factionalism within the reform movement. In a hotel banquet room on the waterfront in Jack London Square on Friday, luminaries of pot law reform rehashed grievances and honed new disputes over future initiative language, as well as campaign funding and control. [continues 883 words]
With its organic nurseries and converted auto body shops selling artisanal barbecue, Berkeley's San Pablo Avenue hardly resembles a war zone. But step into a clean and well-lit former mechanic's space, where a bubbling fountain placed just inside the door offers a hint of peace, and you're on the front lines of the war on drugs. This is Berkeley Patients Group. By virtue of turning 15 years old this Friday, the dispensary is now laying claim to the title of California's oldest medical cannabis dispensary, which also makes it the longest-running legal dealer of marijuana in the United States. [continues 801 words]
Telegraph Health Center in North Oaklanders is a great new spot. Plus, Richmond grosses nearly $1 million in pot taxes, and sungrown deals abound. Oakland's eighth medical cannabis dispensary Telegraph Health Center has a perfect acronym - THC - and a really solid collection of about twenty flowers, plus various concentrates and edibles available for patients. Located at 3003 Telegraph Avenue, in a strip of medical offices close to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, THC is the city's newest and northernmost dispensary. It's also the project of some political heavy hitters. [continues 746 words]
BERKELEY, Calif. - Since the birth of the Free Speech Movement half a century ago, this city has prided itself on its liberal values and policies, be they generous benefits for the needy or a look-the-other-way attitude toward marijuana use. Now, the city is bringing those policies together with a new amenity for the poor here: The marijuana will be free. Beginning next August, medical marijuana dispensaries in this city will be required to donate at least 2 percent of their cannabis to low-income residents. The City Council approved the requirement this summer - unanimously no less - with the hope of making the drug, which can sell for up to $400 an ounce at dispensaries, affordable for all residents. [continues 1204 words]
California Cops Are at Last Willing to Make a Dope Deal As uneasy peaces go, it's not quite Israelis and Palestinians holding hands or dogs and cats living together. But it is close. California's legal-marijuana supporters and the state's powerful police lobby - sworn enemies from the dawn of drug prohibition and intractable political opponents for the 18 years medical cannabis has been legal - are going forward together on rules for a statewide weed market. The new unification was signaled Thursday, when Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) signed on as a co-sponsor of the marijuana-industry regulations introduced by state Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana). [continues 679 words]
House Votes to Rein in Feds Shows Times Are Changing Members of Congress whose states allow the medical use of marijuana have been trying since 2003 to stop federal prosecutors from going after state-approved pot suppliers. In one vote after another, they've been beaten back in the House - until now. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, a lead sponsor of the latest hands-off amendment, expected to fall a few votes short of the 218-vote majority needed for passage. But a 219-189 roll call last week approved the measure, which would cut off funding for Justice Department enforcement actions that interfere with medical marijuana laws in 22 states and with laws in another 10 states that allow medical use of hemp oils. [continues 761 words]
In the drug war, San Francisco is more like no man's land than it is a combat zone. Or it could be territory already lost to the enemy, if you're a prohibitionist or a drug warrior. In 2011, the federal Justice Department started sending marijuana dispensaries around the state a simple message: Close down, or we seize the building and throw you in jail. That threat, issued via registered mail, shut down about a third of San Francisco's licensed and taxpaying pot stores and hundreds more across the state. [continues 631 words]
Will California's anti-smoking laws impede the opportunity for business growth after legalization? My question stems from the idea that there could be Dutch-style coffee shops and smoking lounges, or some such other California incarnation of a social establishment catering to patrons of the green. What are the known legal obstacles for would-be proprietors of a business where marijuana is (openly) consumed on-site? - -The Bulldog Using deduction, I surmise that you (or perhaps a "friend" of yours) are interested in opening an Amsterdam-style cannabis club. I applaud your sentiments. I myself would love to visit. [continues 374 words]
Readers ask questions about pot tourism, cancer anxiety strains, and fighting the munchies. Going to Seattle for three days, how's the new law work for a tourist? How about Colorado? Big Steve Big Steve, Washingtonians passed Initiative 502 last year, legalizing possession of one ounce of weed, 16 ounces of marijuana in solid form (think brownies), and 72 ounces of pot in liquid form for adults 21 and older. But you can't legally buy it anywhere - yet. The state Liquor Control Board says it is in the process of licensing the only legal sellers of marijuana, and that's going to stretch into 2014. If you want to get all potted up in Washington before then, you're going to have to illegally transport it in or find your own hookup and break the law that way. [continues 760 words]
