Kharla Vezzetti 
March 18, 2016 – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in long-awaited guidelines on prescribing opioid medications for pain, gives tepid endorsement for the use of urine testing before and during opioid therapy for pain, despite its statements that, “Urine drug tests do not provide accurate information about how much or what dose of …
March 1, 2016 – In a victory for citizen action and democracy, Hesperia city councilmembers unanimously voted to table their medical marijuana ban on its second reading (when ordinances are very rarely halted) on the very day of the dreaded MMRSA deadline for local control that had the League of Cities orchestrating bans throughout the …
SACRAMENTO – California NORML has declared its opposition to a bill to impose a new 15% state excise tax on retail purchases of medical marijuana (SB 987 by Sen. McGuire). The tax would be in addition to the current 7.5+% sales tax plus various local business taxes assessed by some localities. “At this time when …
February 3, 2016 – Governor Jerry Brown has signed AB 21, an urgency measure introduced by Rep. Jim Wood that repeals a March 1 deadline in the new state medical marijuana law that some have interpreted as requiring local jurisdictions to ban or regulate medical marijuana cultivation, or lose their licensing authority. Now that the …
Download a flyer on the bans with background, talking points, and sample language. See Cal NORML’s talking points on medical marijuana bans. Cal City and County Ban Watch Facebook Page UPDATE Feb. 3, 2016 – The governor has signed AB 21 removing the March 1 deadline in MMRSA for local governments to enact medical marijuana …
You can find a link to watch hearings online at http://assembly.ca.gov/todaysevents or http://www.calchannel.com/live-webcast/ Reps. Woods, Cooley, Jones-Sawyer, Lackey and Bonta have introduced an urgency measure, AB 21, which repeals the March 1 deadline for local action in MMRSA, the 2015 law that regulates medical marijuana. The repeal is supported by the League of Cities, CSAC, …
Download Cal NORML’s flyer with talking points and alternate language Read Cal NORML’s suggested talking points for cities and counties considering bans See Cal NORML’s ban tracking spreadsheet UPDATE 1/27/16 – AB 21 has passed the Senate by a vote of 35-3 and was unanimously passed in the Assembly. It now goes to Gov. Brown’s …
Update June 28, 2016 – The initiative has qualified for the ballot “Joint” Legislative Informational Hearing: Marijuana Legalization. Initiative Statute. 5/24/16 The Adult Use of Marijuana Act is a marijuana legalization initiative that is being proposed for the November, 2016 California ballot. AUMA is an elaborate, 62-page initiative which writes hundreds of new provisions and …
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 …