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UPDATE 5/15/2015 – Clearlake City Council voted 5-0 to repeal the ordinance. Victory!

5/5/2015 – The citizens of Clearlake, with help from the Emerald Growers Association, gathered a sufficient number of signatures to block implementation of the city’s total cultivation ban. The City Council will meet on May 14 to decide whether to rescind the ordinance or place it on the ballot, either at a special election or on the Nov. 2016 ballot. Read more. Cal NORML’s suit against the ban will likely be put on hold until the voters decide the matter.…

NEWS:

December 8, 2017 – The VA has issued VHA Policy Directive 2017-1315 stating, “Veterans must not be denied VHA services solely because they are participating in State-approved marijuana programs.” The directive, signed by Executive in Charge Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D., replaces VHA Directive 2011-004 which had the same language. The new directive is scheduled for recertification on or before the last working day of December 2022.

Like the old directive, the current one does not allow VA doctors to recommend medical cannabis, or for VA pharmacies to supply it.…

March 1, 2015 – This year’s legislative agenda includes several bills to regulate commercial medical marijuana cultivation and sales in California. None of them have been finalized yet, and all could be substantially changed by gutting and amending.

• AB 26 by Asm. Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D – S. LA) and AB 34 by Rob Bonta (D-Oakland) are spot bills to comprehensively regulate the industry. Details have yet to be announced as the sponsors consult with stakeholders and advocates. Cal NORML and other MJ advocates are hopeful they can work with Bonta and Jones-Sawyer to negotiate an acceptable and workable bill.…

Having failed to find evidence that Prop 215 increased teen MJ use in CA, researchers are now alleging an increase in youth marijuana use following adoption of CA’s decriminalization bill in 2011.

Unfortunately, the CA AG stopped conducting its biennial surveys of student drug use, so it’s difficult to confirm these figures. If these claims are accurate, I suspect they reflect coincidental social trends rather than any specific changes in the law. The actual impact of CA’s decrim law was rather technical, as it didn’t change any fines or punishment, just whether the offense was recorded as an arrest or citation.…

The UCLA Simms/Mann Center for Integrative Oncology, which has offered free psychosocial care for cancer patients and their families for 22 years, kicked off its 2015 “Insights into Cancer” lecture series with a panel on medicinal marijuana and cancer on January 13.

The panel featured two psychiatrists, Garth Terry and Thomas Strouse, and public policy professor Mark Kleiman, who was recently hired to develop an implementation scheme for the state of Washington’s legalized recreational marijuana.

It was a well attended event; however the issues addressed during the night (safety, addiction, withdrawal) didn’t always seem to match the concerns of the people in the audience dealing with cancer:

Terry, saying he was speaking his own opinions rather than UCLA’s, gave an overview of cannabis and the cannabinoids, with animated graphics that demonstrated the “feedback loop” by which endocannabinoids modulate that action of neurotransmitters like dopamine.…

This year saw California NORML active on multiple fronts while we undertook preparations for a 2016 legalization initiative with the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform (ReformCA.com).

An event to kick off the 2016 campaign will be held on Friday, January 9, 2015 from 12:30-6:30 PM at the Waterfront Hotel at Jack London Square in Oakland. Seating is limited; read more and RSVP by January 5.

You can read more about our year and our plans below. Please join Cal NORML, renew your membership, or make a year-end donation to help us with our work in 2015!…

Dec. 12, 2014 – California reported 13,779 felony and 6,587 misdemeanor arrests for marijuana in 2013, about the same as the year before, according to the latest data from the Criminal Justice Statistics Center. An unknown number of additional persons, probably in the tens of thousands, were cited for possession infractions of an ounce or less, which are no longer counted in the state’s arrest data.

Meanwhile, the number of DUI arrests dropped 7.5% to 162,199, the lowest level in decades, belying concerns that the state might be suffering a crisis in drug DUIs due to increased marijuana use.…

December 2 – At a hearing this morning in Fresno, county supervisors discussed making proposed changes to their total cultivation ban, including allowing 12-plant gardens, appointing an impartial hearing officer to hear appeals to abatement proceedings and fines, and adjusting the level of fines.

Two locals testified during the hearing: Michael Green of the Fresno Cannabis Assn. and Atty Brenda Linder. Sheriff Mims, whose office had told county counsel a 12-plant exemption would not “hinder their work in the field” rose at the meeting to say she opposed the exemption and also opposed the appointment of a hearing officer.…

UPDATE 12/2 – A Tale of Two Counties: Fresno Balks But El Dorado Listens

December 1, 2014 – At a meeting tomorrow morning, Fresno county—the only county in California that has enacted a total ban on the cultivation of medical marijuana (indoors and out)—is considering allowing a 12-plant exemption to their ban, as well as amending fines and administrative procedures around their ordinance.

Sometime after 9 AM, the Fresno Board of Supervisors will receive a report from County Counsel Daniel Cederborg that recommends including an exemption to administrative fines for the cultivation of 12 or fewer plants per parcel.…

In 2014, CalNORML lobbied for the passage of AB 1894 (Ammiano) and worked on SB1262 (Correa) to regulate medical marijuana in California. In the end, both bills failed after unacceptable compromises were introduced in the Correa bill.

Through sound testimony and by alerting our activist network, we were able to detail yet another bill, AB2500 that sought to make any amount of THC in a driver’s blood an automatic DUI.

We lobbied against AB 1588 (Conway), which would have expanded the minimum distance of dispensaries or collectives from schools to 1,000 feet from the present 600 feet.…