California’s marijuana market, which reached an estimated $4.4 billion in sales in 2020, has seemingly reached peak cannabis capitalism. But the overwhelming sense amongst the so-called “legacy growers” is that they’re at a breaking point, exhausted by the regulations of the industry that they largely created. Protecting existing growers was a pillar of Proposition 64, which legalized marijuana for adult use. Legalization advocates included a provision to encourage legacy growers to join the legal market, promising that no cultivation site would be larger than one acre until 2023, so that small farms wouldn’t face competition from multi-acre ‘mega farms’ for at least five years. But cannabis industry lobbyists persuaded the California Department of Food and Agriculture to change the provision.

MedMen looked to become the Apple of pot, the first mainstream, nationwide consumer brand for the product that drove so many Americans to ingest and invest. Marijuana liberalization was sweeping the country. A nascent industry was taking shape. No company was better poised to reap the rewards than MedMen was. Then, it all began to unravel. The company got hit with a class-action lawsuit from employees alleging labor law violations. Miffed investors sued the founders, accusing them of self-dealing and other underhanded tactics. A former chief financial officer filed a blockbuster complaint in a Los Angeles court accusing the founders of a slew of misdeeds, from manipulating MedMen’s stock price, to bank fraud, to seeking private intelligence groups to get dirt on their enemies...

California’s new rules allowing marijuana cultivation favor large corporate farms despite a promise in Proposition 64 that small growers would be protected, according to a group of state lawmakers and marijuana industry leaders who called for the policy to be changed. The California Department of Food and Agriculture issued emergency rules last month that allow for small and medium-sized farms of up to a quarter acre and one acre, respectively, to get licenses for the first five years. That five-year head start for small farms was promised in Proposition 64, the initiative approved last year by voters that legalized growing and selling marijuana for recreational use.

More than nine months after California voted to legalize recreational marijuana, only a small share of the tens of thousands of cannabis farmers in Northern California have joined the system, according to law enforcement officers and cannabis growers. Despite the promise of a legal marketplace, many growers are staying in the shadows, casting doubt on the promise of a billion-dollar tax windfall for the state and a smooth switch to a regulated market. At the same time, environmental damage and crime associated with illegal cannabis businesses remain entrenched in the state despite legalization, law enforcement officials say.

If New Zealand votes to legalise cannabis in 2020’s binding referendum, we will have a unique opportunity on our hands. Creating a licit market from scratch means the government can legislate for particular outcomes, before the gates are open and the proverbial horse has bolted. As it relates to harm caused by drug laws, this means there is an opportunity to legislate and regulate a legal cannabis market so that communities who have suffered under prohibition benefit economically and socially from the licitmarket. Righting wrongs and closing gaps are best done alongside decriminalisation right at the outset. (See also: Regulating cannabis - a challenge we are more than up to)

Back in 2017, Los Angeles was among the first places in the United States to legalize weed with social equity in mind. Today, social equity dominates the conversation about who should be allowed to sell legal pot, with programs planned or up and running in Michigan, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Virginia, Arizona, and more. But behind the corporate rhetoric and the political promises are sobering numbers and widespread frustration with how social equity has harmed some of the exact people the programs are meant to help. In the five years since a plan was outlined in Los Angeles, 1,629 people became verified as social equity applicants, but only about 35 retailers have opened.

Los fiscales del condado de Los Ángeles (California) trabajan para eliminar o reducir hasta 66,000 condenas relacionadas con la marihuana, dictadas antes de que esta sustancia se legalizara en el estado en 2016. Para ello, colaboran con Code For America, una organización sin fines de lucro que les ofreció gratis tecnología capaz de localizar documentos judiciales acumulados en los registros hace años y posiblemente perdidos. Entre los beneficiados por el plan hay más de 20,000 latinos: muchos tendrán así un alivio respecto a antecedentes peligrosos, que les pueden abrir la vía de la deportación si no son ciudadanos estadounidenses, pues la marihuana se sigue considerando ilegal a nivel federal. 

Los Angeles moved this week to dismiss nearly 66,000 marijuana convictions, years after the state voted to legalize the drug. The county is working with a not-for-profit technology organization, Code for America, to use algorithms to identify eligible cases within decades-old court documents. “The dismissal of tens of thousands of old cannabis-related convictions in Los Angeles county will bring much-needed relief to communities of color that disproportionately suffered the unjust consequences of our nation’s drug laws,” said Jackie Lacey, the LA district attorney, in a statement. Prosecutors this week asked a superior court judge to dismiss 62,000 felony cannabis convictions for cases that date back to 1961.

Conventional wisdom says marijuana dispensaries make neighborhoods less safe, but a new study from UC Irvine suggests the conventional wisdom is wrong and that crime increases after cities move to close pot shops. “Given all the pretty strong rhetoric about dispensaries generating or at least attracting crime, it was not the result we expected,” said Mireille Jacobson, a health economics professor at UCI. “But I feel comfortable saying it’s very unlikely that these places are crime magnets.” Dispensaries seem to behave in this respect much like restaurants and other mainstream businesses, Jacobson said, helping to deter vehicle break-ins and other low-level crimes simply by putting more bystanders on the streets.

Banning a plant with hundreds of industrial and medical uses was never going to work out well, but 2022 saw marijuana prohibition reach peak absurdity, not to mention peak confusion for consumers and new businesses trying to make sense of it all. At first glance, cannabis reform appears to be humming along smoothly. Maryland, Missouri and Rhode Island approved legalization initiatives in 2022 as states such as New Mexico and New York raced to establish regulations for legal recreational sales. New laws in mostly blue states expunged cannabis arrests from criminal records for thousands of people. President Joe Biden made moves to pardon federal marijuana prisoners and reconsider the federal “scheduling” of marijuana...

A plan backed by Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker to legalize recreational use of marijuana in California is on the path to the November ballot, potentially bringing more than $1bn a year in tax revenue. The proposal, which would allow for the retail sale of marijuana to adults aged 21 and older, is one of the most highly anticipated initiatives, in no small part because California is the country’s largest economy and the eighth largest in the world. But some industry insiders are unhappy with the proposal and are withholding support. "This skews towards big marijuana," said Hezekiah Allen of the California Growers Association.

During the past century of cannabis prohibition, a steady flow of illegal marijuana has been smuggled across the border from Mexican farms to American stoners. But as increasing numbers of U.S. states are legalizing cannabis, the flow of Mexican weed to the States has begun to slow, and is now even reversing, thanks to middle-class Mexican citizens who are crossing the border to sample some of California's premium pot. Medical and recreational cannabis dispensaries in San Diego and other nearby cities have reported seeing more and more Mexican citizens traveling to check out their wares.

Oakland officials are exploring building a safe injection site for illicit-drug users in hopes of lowering open-air drug use on city streets. Mayor Libby Schaaf and Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas introduced a resolution to the City Council Thursday to support AB362, a state bill that would allow the city and county of San Francisco to operate a supervised center for drug users. The resolution also requests that the state bill be amended to include Oakland. A similar bill was vetoed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in October. But Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he is receptive to the idea of a safe injection site, even though opening one would remain illegal under federal law.

Cinco años después de la legalización del cannabis, California está llena de indicios del aparente crecimiento de la industria. Los californianos pueden fumar porros de la marca de Justin Bieber y echar la cenizas en ceniceros de 95 dólares hechos por Seth Rogen. Pueden beber refrescos con THC, relajarse con un café de cannabis y pedir comestibles para que les envíen a casa. Pero detrás de esta fachada, la industria del cannabis legal sigue lejos de ser el sector próspero y respetuoso de la ley que muchos esperaban. De hecho, es un lío. La votación para legalizar el consumo recreativo de marihuana sucedió en noviembre de 2016. Pero hoy, la gran mayoría del mercado sigue siendo ilegal – entre el 80% y 90%, según los expertos.

Across the world, the state of environmental stress is unprecedented. As scholarship and activism on ‘environmental justice’ points out, poorer and marginalised communities face particular exposure to environmental harms. This holds particularly true for populations in the global South. The role of illicit drugs in relation to these environmental stresses is an underexplored terrain. Yet, as this report will argue, drugs, as well as the policy responses to them, are an environmental issue.

Download the report (PDF)

When it was first proposed, the concept of marijuana legalization seemed solid enough. Take the world’s most popular illicit substance, establish a taxed and regulated marketplace and watch all of the evil associated with the herb – the criminal activity, the youth consumption – fade away into a footnote of American history. And by all accounts, it was a plan that should have worked. Considering all of the insanity surrounding the cannabis trade, it’s hard to argue that marijuana legalization is working. It should be, but the scene is just too convoluted. Sure, the polls show the majority of the U.S. population supports marijuana legalization. But that doesn’t mean they will buy it legally once it happens.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin, allowing city officials to bypass some bureaucratic hurdles as they try to stem a tide of fatal overdoses and street crime. The declaration would allow city officials to suspend rules around zoning, planning codes and contracts, enabling them to quickly set up a “linkage” facility that offers shelter, mental health and hygiene to people suffering from addiction. Her announcement comes after Breed unveiled a plan for the downtown neighborhood, ramping up funding for police overtime and infrastructure, such as public toilets, while adding social workers and outreach staff to lure more people into treatment — or jail those who refuse. (Opinion: Breed’s plan to shut down Tenderloin drug markets is progressive)

San Francisco could be one step closer to opening a supervised drug use site after the Board of Supervisors approved the purchase of property for that purpose. Though supervised consumption sites are currently illegal under federal and state law, Mayor London Breed, backed by many supervisors, is pushing to open one.The approved agreement to purchase adjacent properties stated that the buildings would be used to serve people with behavioral health needs, not specifically for a supervised drug consumption site. The Board watered that down even further with a last-minute amendment by Supervisor Matt Haney that added the site wasn’t authorized for “any specific use” and the city “has not committed to a specific use or project on the site.”

San Francisco officials plan to expunge more than 9,000 marijuana convictions dating back to 1975, the city's highest law enforcement official said. It's the culmination of San Francisco's year-long review of past convictions after California voters legalized recreational marijuana throughout the state in 2016. Several California cities are taking on the task of expunging records, but San Francisco is the first one to finish the job, the San Francisco Chroniclereported. "It was the morally right thing to do," San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón told the Los Angeles Times. "If you have a felony conviction, you are automatically excluded in so many ways from participating in your community."

State Sen. Scott Wiener is trying — once again — to allow San Francisco to open a safe injection site, where people can use drugs in a safe and supervised setting. It’s currently illegal to open a such a site in California. The bill, which Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced, would allow San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland to open a safe injection site. The pilot program would sunset Jan. 1, 2027. Mayor London Breed and members of the Board of Supervisors support opening safe drug use sites in San Francisco, where overdoses have skyrocketed this year. The city is on track to lose two people a day to the crisis, which shows no signs of slowing as the pandemic disrupts city services and isolates people from their communities.