Kharla Vezzetti

Take Action on This Bill

UPDATE 6/1/2016 – Lawmakers have added language to AB 2243 (Wood) making the bill an “urgency statue.” That means it takes effect immediately when the Governor signs the bill. It must be voted on by Friday, June 3.
Amended text

SACRAMENTO May 10 – The CA Assembly is expected to vote on Asm. Wood’s bill AB 2243 to impose a $9.25/ounce tax on cultivation of medical (only) marijuana in coming days.

Now is the time to call on your Assembly member to oppose AB 2243.…

May 4, 2016 – Sponsors have submitted more than 600,000 signatures for the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, an adult-use legalization initiative that is expected to appear on the California ballot this November.

AUMA is funded by internet billionaire Sean Parker with support from Lt. Gov Gavin Newsom and numerous reform groups. The petitions must still be certified by the state before a ballot number is assigned.

AUMA would make several notable improvements in California law:

(1) Make it legal for adults 21 years and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and cultivate up to six plants for personal use;

(2) Regulate and tax the production, manufacture, and sale of marijuana for adult use; and

(3) Rewrite criminal penalties so as to reduce existing felony penalties for cultivation, transportation, sales, possession with intent, etc to misdemeanors and allow prior offenders to petition for reduced charges.…

UPDATE 5/31/16 – The bill has failed to win approval in the Assembly Appropriations committee.

Thanks to all the NORML supporters who wrote to their legislators against this bill. NORML’s online alert generated the following:

Unique Supporters Taking Action: 963
Total Actions Taken: 1267
Total Letters Sent: 1318

UPDATE 6/10/2016: AAA Study: No scientific basis for laws on marijuana and driving.

L to R: Former NIDA researcher Marilyn Huestis, Santa Clara DA Jeff Rosen, Asm. Evan Low

SACRAMENTO, April 19 – Today in the Assembly Public Safety Committee, AB 2740 (Low, Lackey) passed by a 4-2 vote, despite objections from activists and science on our side.…

TAKE ACTION ON SB 987

SACRAMENTO April 9, 2016 – California legislative committees are considering two different bills by North Coast legislators to tax commercial medical marijuana.

• SB 987 by Sen. McGuire (Healdsburg) would impose a 15% excise tax on retail purchases of medical marijuana, above and beyond the current 7.5+% sales tax plus various local business taxes assessed by some localities.
• AB 2243 by Asm. Wood (Headsburg) would impose a cultivation tax of $9.25 per ounce on medical marijuana flowers, $2.75 per ounce on leaves, and $1.25 on each immature plant sold to licensed distributors in the state.…

TAKE ACTION ON SB 987 and AB 2740

SACRAMENTO – Cal NORML is calling on the legislature to reject proposed legislation to tax medical (only) marijuana. SB 987 by Sen. McGuire would impose a 15% excise tax on retail purchases of medical marijuana in addition to the current 7.5+% sales tax plus various local business taxes assessed by some localities. AB 2243 by Asm. Wood would impose a $9.25 per ounce cultivation tax on all medical marijuana produced.

“At this time when providers already face burdensome new costs under the Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act (MMRSA), it is unwise and inappropriate to impose any new state tax on medical marijuana,” says California NORML director Dale Gieringer.…

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 opioids or other drugs a patient took,” and “The clinical evidence review did not find studies evaluating the effectiveness of urine drug screening for risk mitigation during opioid prescribing for pain.”…

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 state. The council instead directed staff to draft language allowing for home delivery and cultivation in the city.

Councilman Schmidt credited social media for getting the word out to the packed house.…

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 March 1 deadline is repealed, Cal NORML is calling for all jurisdictions that are considering banning medical marijuana activities to instead table the issue, and for all cities and counties to work towards land use regulations to protect patients rights, as well as public safety and the environment.…

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 cultivation regulations. The bill also eliminates an objectionable clause that explicitly authorized local governments to prohibit the cultivation, storage, manufacture, trasnport, provision or other activity by patients and caregivers otherwise exempt from state regulation.…

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, and the RCRC. It is heading to a January 20 hearing in Senate Health Committee at 1:30 PM in room 4203 of the State Capitol Building.…

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 desk, and will take effect immediately upon his signature, repealing the March 1 deadline for cities and counties to act and retain local licensing authority.

1/19/2016 – The California Assembly Business & Professions, Agriculture, & Health Committees held a “joint” hearing today to discuss MMRSA implementation.…

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 regulations into state law. Its basic thrust is to:

(1) allow adults 21 years and older to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and cultivate up to six plants for personal use;

(2) regulate and tax the production, manufacture, and sale of marijuana for adult use; and

(3) rewrite criminal penalties so as to reduce the most common marijuana felonies to misdemeanors and allow prior offenders to petition for reduced charges.…

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 got a sit-down with Rep. Doris Matsui (pictured).

At a luncheon for attendees, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR) further charged up attendees when he said, “Obama famously has said he has bigger fish to fry.…

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 testing program in order to conform with a 1996 state law that requires taxi drivers to be tested under federal DOT drug testing guidelines. San Frandisco has been the only city not in compliance with state law, having previously rejected a drug testing program some years ago when taxis were regulated by the Board of Supervisors instead of SFMTA.…

September 2015 – California recorded 19,711 marijuana arrests in 2014, down slightly from 20,346 in 2013. This included 13,300 felonies and 6,411 misdemeanors. (An unknown additional number of Californians were cited for non-criminal possession infractions.)

Arrests have been steadily declining since 2008 and are now at their lowest level since 1966.

Latinos led the state with 43% of arrests, followed by whites at 31% and blacks at 16%. Latinos slightly outnumber whites in California, while blacks are strongly overrepresented among arrestees, as they account for just 7% of the state’s population.…

Also see: Summary of Expected Emergency MAUCRSA Regulations and Temporary License Application

September 29, 2017 – California’s three cannabis licensing authorities have announced the official withdrawal of the draft medical cannabis regulations that were proposed in late spring. The three cannabis licensing authorities will develop emergency regulations based new laws that passed this year, and will incorporate the robust and valuable public comment received on the proposed medical cannabis regulations.

A summary of public comments, as well as the responses to those comments, received by each agency – either in writing or in person at one of the public comment forums hosted by the three agencies – can be viewed by clicking the links below:

Bureau of Cannabis Control (MCRSA)

Bureau of Cannabis Control (Laboratories)

CA Department of Food and Ag (Cultivation) 

CA Department of Public Health (Manufacturing)

The licensing authorities will use the emergency rulemaking process for the new regulations.…

UPDATE: SB 643 passes CA Assembly by vote of 54-11 after 15 mins. debate (mostly on the 600-sq. ft. buffer, which locals can override.)

If signed by the Governor, the act would give the Department of Consumer Affairs the sole authority to create, issue, renew, discipline, suspend, or revoke licenses for the transportation and storage, (unrelated to manufacturing) of medical marijuana, and would authorize the department to collect fees for its regulatory activities and impose specified duties on this department in this regard.…

SACRAMENTO August 28, 2015 – The newly amended AB 266 proposed by the Governor’s Office appears to be an improvement on its predecessor. In particular, it allows deliveries everywhere except where specifically banned; the previous version required the government of the receiving locaity to authorize deliveries beforehand. While the new bill still has some problems, it may offer a workable first step towards legal regulation of medical cannabis in California (at least until we can pass a ballot measure in November 2016).…

Large plants of the type grown by Humboldt farmers	The types of plants eradicated on public lands

UPDATE June 2026 – Cannabis rarely the top water user in Northern California watersheds, UC Berkeley study finds

Cannabis cultivation accounts for a fraction of total water demand in northern California’s rural watersheds, drawing far less than either residential users or non-cannabis agriculture, according to a peer-reviewed study published April 22 in PLOS Water.

UPDATE April 2021 – Legal Cannabis Cultivation’s Footprint Sinks Common Assumptions About Comparative Water Use

A report from New Frontier Data in partnership with Resource Innovation Institute and the University of California, Berkeley concluded that “while the state’s orchards use nearly 7 million acre-feet of water, and rice fields use nearly 5 million acre-feet, the state’s lucrative cannabis industry only uses 3,000 acre-feet, making it the most water-economical crop among the state’s top revenue crops.”…