As California cannabis businesses are being targeted for violent robberies across the state, the CA Bureau of Cannabis Control is asking for an 87-member police force to beef up its crackdown on unlicensed cannabis operations. It would create the law enforcement branch by hiring 29 more cannabis cops, and absorbing 58 positions from the Department of Consumer Affairs’ Cannabis Enforcement Unit, which has 47 police and 11 non-sworn personnel on staff.

According to The Sacramento Bee, the bureau seized nearly 24 tons of illicit cannabis in 2019, while the California Highway Patrol in 2018 seized more than 80 tons.…

Cal NORML wrote to the committee and testified against the bill, and promulgated an Action Alert that generated hundreds of letters to lawmakers in opposition. Thanks to all of our members and supporters who took action!

In introducing the bill, Asm.…

It’s a new day, but there is still much work to be done!  Here are some of the areas where Cal NORML continues to be active for your rights.

– We still don’t have our full human rights: currently, you can lose your job in California for using cannabis, even for medical use. …

The Mountain View planning commission had voted to amend the ordinance to only allow one cannabis business in the city’s downtown area, prohibit the businesses in and around the San Antonio Center shopping area and mandate a 600-foot buffer zone between storefront cannabis businesses. Source. 

March 6, 2019 – At a six-hour hearing held on March 5 in Mountain View, the city council voted against banning cannabis dispensaries in the city, and directed staff to bring back potential amendments to their ordinance allowing for four cannabis businesses that has already seen 10 Phase 1 applicants for licenses.…

Teaming with the nonprofit technology company Code for America, the DA’s office said it has identified 9,362 eligible cases dating back to 1975 using the company’s “Clear My Record” technology. Gascón will present the cases to a judge in the coming weeks for final approval.…

February 20 – Governor Gavin Newsom plans to reassign 360 of the state’s California National Guard from the US-Mexico border to tackle wildfire preparedness and illicit marijuana grows in Northern California. In a February 11 press release and his State of the State speech on February 12, the governor announced that at least 150 California National Guard troops will join a federally funded Counterdrug Task Force he said he will be “redeploying up north to go after all these illegal cannabis farms, many of which are run by the cartels that are devastating our pristine forests and increasingly themselves becoming fire hazards.”

Interviewed on The Breakfast Club radio show in NYC, Harris called for more research into marijuana’s effect on developing brains, and into measuring impairment of drivers using cannabis.

Harris said she smoked joints (not blunts) when she was in college, while listening to music by marijuana-lover Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur.…

Proposition 215, passed by the voters of California in 1996 and still in effect today, protects only the personal use and cultivation of medical marijuana for patients, or their primary caregivers who cultivate for them. Recognizing the need for systems of distribution, the California legislature passed SB420 in 2004, allowing patients to form nonprofit medical cannabis collectives or cooperatives, under which cultivation and distribution were protected under state law.…