Kharla Vezzetti 
HIV patient Robin Bishop speaks at a rally in support of Berkeley Patients Group. BERKELEY CA, May 8th. Medical cannabis advocates rallied today to protest the Obama administration’s latest assault on medical marijuana: the U.S. Dept of Justice has filed a property forfeiture lawsuit against the landlord of the East Bay’s oldest operating medical cannabis …
May 6, 2013 UPDATED 11:15 AM – In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled that local governments may ban medical marijuana dispensaries. In the decision, City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center, the court ruled that California’s state medical marijuana laws do not preempt the authority of local governments …
It is with sadness that CalNORML reports the death of Mike Gray, Gray was a documentarian and the award-winning screenwriter of the prophetic movie China Syndrome (starring Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda) who took an interest in the drug war after reading a 1992 article in the LA Times by DPA’s Ethan Nadelmann. Written in …
California NORML Release April 30, 2013 US Attorney Melinda Haag has issued a spate of new landlord letters targeting medical cannabis dispensaries in Northern California. Cal NORML has so far heard reports from dispensaries in San Jose, San Francisco and Ukiah. The letters warn landlords that the facilities are operating too close to a school …
SACRAMENTO, APRIL 30. The State Senate Public Safety Committee approved Sen. Steinberg’s bill to regulate medical marijuana, SB 439. Steinberg said the bill was not yet in final form, but rather a “vehicle to engage stakeholders” in fashioning reasonable regulations and curbing abuses. He said he had been in contact with Assemblyman Ammiano (who has …
UPDATE April 30 – After over 3,400 letters and emails were sent from NORML supporters in opposition to this bill, it was pulled from consideration this year. April 23 – Dale Gieringer of California NORML spoke today at a rally in Sacramento against a bill that would make any amount of marijuana or drugs in …
SACRAMENTO Apr 23. – The Assembly Public Safety Committee approved Tom Ammiano’s MMJ regulation bill AB 473 on a party line vote. The bill would create a new Division of MMJ Regulation and Enforcement in the Dept of Alcoholic Beverages Control to regulate commercial sales, production, manufacture, testing and transport for MMJ. Testifying in favor …
April 14 – Serving as acting governor while Jerry Brown is in China on a trade mission, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom called for the decriminalization of marijuana in his speech at the California Democratic Convention in Sacramento on Saturday. Newsom joked about an acting governor library currently being constructed in the back of a …
Over 300 people attended California NORML’s conference marking the 100th anniversary of marijuana prohibition in California, held January 26 & 27 at Ft. Mason Conference Center in San Francisco. The conference began with presentations on the history of cannabis prohibition and the resistance to it. The Board of Pharmacy pushed for a law in 1913 …
UPDATE 5/9: Stephanie Chaung of NBC Bay Area did some great research for this story, uncovering the fact that only four outdoor medical marijuana gardens were reported in complaints in Concord since 2009, and only one had a violent episode. The police sergeant she interviews speaks of home invasion robberies, something moving gardens indoors will …