Proposition 19

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to Visit Berkeley, Marijuana Supporters to Protest

Eric Holder is a survivor. The United States attorney general's record during President Obama's first term was more than a bit spotty: Holder angered the left when he defended Obama's use of drones to kill suspected terrorists without court proceedings and when he said he couldn't prosecute the bank ... More >>

Poll: Even More Californians Want to Legalize Marijuana. So When's Their Next Chance?

Today's release of a Field Poll indicating "record high support" for marijuana legalization -- and the accompanying cavalcade of clever (for newspapers) puns in headlines -- signals what many have known for some time, even before Washington and Colorado shot ahead of California: Cannabis legalizatio ... More >>

Gavin Newsom Changes His Mind, Now Supports Marijuana Legalization

"Late to the party" was a term not typically applied to Gavin Newsom during his eight years as San Francisco mayor City Hall. This was the man who catapulted himself to national acclaim by jumping the gun on gay marriage, after all. He's the same "idea mayor" who created the carbon fund and snagged ... More >>

Unlike in 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder Stays Silent on Marijuana Legalization

Scapegoats were readily available when California voters missed their chance to live in the first state in the Union to legalize marijuana for adults in 2010. While some blamed the medical marijuana supporters who opposed Proposition 19 -- which led some in some pre-election polls, at 52 percen ... More >>

Palo Alto Mulls Medical Marijuana, With Conservative Backing

It's a fine town, but Palo Alto is a bit one-dimensional. There's nearby Stanford, and nearby Silicon Valley (fine, that's two dimensions), but not much else is happening in that Peninsula city.But what about medical marijuana? The city could become the first San Mateo County municipality to allow m ... More >>

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano Pulls Plug on Medical Marijuana Reform Bill

Attempts to reform California's oft-confusing and always-contentious medical marijuana industry have been put on hold until next year -- at the earliest.Assemblyman Tom Ammiano on Monday withdrew from consideration Assembly Bill 2312, medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access announ ... More >>

Organized Labor Flexes Muscle for Medical Marijuana Dispensary

Support from UFCW Helps Mission Organics Win PermitSan Francisco's reputation as a union town was hard-won on the docks and picket lines of the 1930s. Less violence accompanied the city being known as a haven for pot-smoking freaks, but it took the carnage of the AIDS epidemic for San Francisco to b ... More >>

Marijuana Legalization Support May Have Plateaued in California, Poll Says

Things are said to come in threes. If so, "things" are not polls showing a majority support for marijuana legalization. After pot-friendly polls conducted by Gallup and Rasmussen gave cannabis a little hope, an LA Times/USC poll released May 31 became the real downer when it showed only 46 percent o ... More >>

Another Poll Shows Marijuana Legalization Has Overwhelming Support

If only President Barack Obama was marijuana, then he'd win reelection by a landslide.Marijuana legalization enjoys a 20-point advantage in the polls among American adults, according to a recent survey Rasmussen Reports. Fifty-six percent of Americans polled support the notion of marijuana being tax ... More >>

Meet the California Lawmakers Who Are Enabling the Marijuana War

Losing efforts sometimes score wins. Medical marijuana scored such a moral victory late Wednesday, when 163 members of Congress voted in favor of not allowing federal dollars to be spent on busting pot growers, distributors, and dispensaries in states with medical cannabis laws.The brainchild o ... More >>

California Congressmen Push Spending Cuts on Federal Marijuana Enforcement

Budget hawks incensed over San Francisco's supposedly profligate spending ought to spend a few minutes at Congress, observing the dollar requests submitted by federal departments.Take the $28.2 billion, 111,998-employee federal Department of Justice, for example. The country's 12,000 employees in Un ... More >>

Marijuana Legalization Efforts Fail in California, Thanks to The Feds

Few successful political movements count their finest hours a loss. Yet 2010 will remain the high water mark of the marijuana legalization movement for at least another two years -- or longer, if the federal situation worsens.Buoyed by Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee's cash and energy, Pro ... More >>

Marijuana Day: San Francisco's Guide to Music, Comedy, and Protest on 4/20

If you're reading this, it's arrived: The marijuana holiday, the tokiest of tokies, the Christmas/Chinese New Year/Yom Kippur of cannabis use. The 20th day of April, the beloved 420.Woot.Today, every medical cannabis dispensary in town will be offering specials and discounts, and many will be offeri ... More >>

Oaksterdam University Goes Volunteer-Only, Future Uncertain

The federal Justice Department does not yet have Richard Lee's head. But in the wake of a multi-agency raid on Oaksterdam University, they have his business.The "cannabis college," Oakland's best known institution of higher learning -- sorry, Mills, but you don't teach people to grow weed -- is now ... More >>

Oaksterdam University Pledges to Re-open After Federal Raid on Marijuana Leader

What many saw as the inevitable hit Oaksterdam founder Richard Lee on Monday, when federal agents came knocking at the home and businesses of the man who has become the marijuana movement's de-facto figurehead.After Lee revived a moribund part of downtown Oakland with a school dedicated to the pot t ... More >>

Wait Until 2014: Marijuana Legalization All But Dead in California

​Union Pulls Plug on Medical Reform, Other Ballot Measures Starved For Cash; Legislature, Ammiano Last Hope for Reform NowNobody likes to celebrate with a loss, but for the medical marijuana movement, 2010 and the historic defeat of semi-legalization measure Proposition 19 already look like the go ... More >>

Marijuana Legalization Measure Courts Billionaires for Vital Campaign Cash

Close. But close enough?​Regulate Marijuana Like Wine, a marijuana legalization measure vying to get onto the November ballot, has only $80,000 in cash on hand, according to finance records. But in a poll released this week, it had potential support from 62 percent of likely voters -- and that, ba ... More >>

Weed Wars: Watch a 5-Year Old Smoke Medical Marijuana Tonight

If it makes parents tolerable ... ​A few common schools of thought persist in the medical marijuana debate -- on one end, doubters point to young men at dispensaries and say that the drug is widely abused by people who are "not that sick." On the other hand, believers say that you don't need to be ... More >>

Medical Marijuana Makes for Sober, Safer Drivers, Study Says

​While medical marijuana advocates will politely ask them to stop talking whenever the subject arises, there are many cannabis users who will claim that the task of operating a motor vehicle is safer when the driver is a bit stoned. Turns out that researchers crunching traffic data from 13 states ... More >>

Pot Beer, Pot Vodka, & Pot Wine: A Psycho Dad Says You Deserve It

​ Sometimes weed just isn't enough. Sometimes, daddy wants to get fucked up. Just like the first two sentences of this post, you alienate people. Your kids are buckwild and rude. Your boss won't go to bat for your paycheck. The pigs stuck you trying to hop a free ride on MUNI again. Can I get a wi ... More >>

Oaksterdam's Richard Lee: Marijuana Legalization Is "Dead" in California -- For Now

Richard Lee says it's all over -- for now​Last year's Proposition 19 was quite a wild ride, but marijuana legalization in California is over.  That's according to Richard Lee, the Oaksterdam University founder and chief sponsor of Prop. 19, which won its place on Californians' November 2010 b ... More >>

Pot Legalization Measure Has Support of Mendocino Growers

Drug Policy AllianceThat's the idea​Can Protections for Medical Patients Help Succeed Where Proposition 19 Failed?Cannabis advocates promised they'd be back at the California ballot following marijuana legalization measure Proposition 19's historic failure in November 2010 (the measure received mo ... More >>

Another Poll Shows Majority Support Legalizing Pot

Yes​Ho-hum. Another day, another poll showing a majority of Americans are sick of the War on Drugs and favor marijuana legalization.Of 1,003 Americans nationwide contacted by Canadian firm Angus Reid Public Opinion, 55 percent said they support the legalization of marijuana while 40 percent were o ... More >>

Rolling Paper: Looking at the Current State of Safe Access

Blowing Smoke: Obama Promises One Thing, Does Another on Medical Marijuana

Gloating 101: What Banners to Fly Over Dodgers Stadium Tonight

Joe EskenaziDon't stop believing (or rubbing their face in it).​It's been four months and 29 days since millions of Giants fans and players paraded through the Orange and Black-decked arteries of San Francisco, dangling red thongs, airing Prop 19-related grievances, spraying champagne, and rag ... More >>

Steve Kubby, Prop 215 Author, Drafts New initiative to Decriminalize Marijuana

Steve Kubby, would-be freer of marijuana Steve Kubby has earned his stripes: Before he was a Libertarian Party candidate for governor of California and President of the United States (and South Lake Tahoe City Council), Kubby was a model activist and poster child for the medical cannabis movement. T ... More >>

Ammiano's Cannabis Bill a 'Rumor' -- For Now

Buzz kill​You know the old saying: Where there's Tom Ammiano, there's cannabis. California's most cannabis-friendly assemblyman is being connected with an "omnibus cannabis bill" meant to reform, regulate, and clarify the many gray areas in California's medical marijuana laws. Aside from that, som ... More >>

Marijuana Roundup: The Year In Pot

​How was your 2010? For the cannabis community, it was a wild flip of the calendar, with dispensaries opening and closing, police raiding, a medical cannabis luminary thrown in jail for meth charges -- and we vaguely remember something about a legalization ballot measure. There's still time y ... More >>

The Five Dumbest Songs About Weed (To Blame For Prop 19's Failure)

​There might be no excuses in rock 'n' roll, but politics, as we've heard this week, is made of little else. Pundits and the wonkocracy hint that Prop. 19's failure, like every other Election Day disaster, was due to the hordes of scared-shitless elderly voters driven to the polls last Tuesday by ... More >>

Prop. 19 Smoked -- Marijuana Supporters Promise New Legalization Effort

Wait 'til next year...​As the national media will gladly tell you, people are smoking weed in San Francisco. People -- with and without medical marijuana recommendations -- smoked weed yesterday and they'll do so today, and they were going to do so no matter what happened with Proposition 19, the ... More >>

Prop. 19 Backer Richard Lee Not Ready to Count Out Pot Legalization

​Say what you will, Richard Lee is no Joe Namath. The New York Jets quarterback, against all odds, guaranteed a Super Bowl victory. Lee, the pot entrepreneur behind Oaksterdam University -- and the driving fiscal force behind Proposition 19 -- was decidedly noncommittal when queried about electora ... More >>

Legalize It So Wiz Khalifa'll Come Party With Us In California

In arguably the least surprising development in the lead-up to next Tuesday's general election, Wiz Khalifa -- promising Pittsburgh rapper and successor to the weed-rules-everything-around-me mantle of Devin the Dude -- has come out in support of Proposition 19. 

Attention, Guardianistas: Here are your endorsements.

Make a Famous Musician -- Wayne Coyne! Bob Weir! -- Remind You To Vote

Russ Harrington (russharrington.com) for Harp MagazineGrace Potter gets intimate with democracy​So you're the kind of person who forgets to vote. And in such a democracy-happy burg as S.F., where voters are asked to weigh in frequently on such trivialities as the mix of recycled material in the to ... More >>

Nancy Pelosi's Libertarian Opponent, John Dennis, Imagines Privatized Sidewalks

John Galt, er, Dennis, for Congress.​Nancy Pelosi's Republican opponent to represent her San Francisco congressional seat is the subject of a Chronicle profile today claiming he "runs to the left of" the House Speaker.But John Dennis, who says he's raised $2 million to unseat Pelosi, is a "Liberty ... More >>

Feds Seize Grow Equipment, Cash from Oakland Pot Factory

Pot growers, we welcome you -- and your seized assets​Backers of Proposition 19 say their legalize-and-tax-it approach to marijuana will raise money for the strapped California government. Recent comments by U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, along with an Oct. 8 federal forfeiture filing connecte ... More >>

End Prohibition?

Napster's Sean Parker Showers $100K on Marijuana Measure

RamaScreenNapster's Sean Parker -- yes, the guy played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network -- put his pot money where his mouth is​The e-mail came Monday from Oaksterdam University's Richard Lee, the main driving force (at least publicly) behind cannabis semi-legalization measure Propos ... More >>

California's Marijuana Laws Now Nation's Most Liberal

Your governor, in action​After Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger affixed his signature on a Sen. Mark Leno-authored bill yesterday, California's marijuana policy became the nation's most progressive, pot activists tell SF Weekly. While existing law calls for anyone busted with an ounce or less of pot to ... More >>

Pot Baron Steve DeAngelo Calls For More Compassion in World of Corporate Marijuana

Harborside Health CenterSteve DeAngelo says greed, for lack of a better word, is not good​Steve DeAngelo cares. The owner of Oakland's Harborside Health Center -- the largest medical cannabis dispensary in the United States, with some 60,000 patients and counting -- wants to "flip the switch" ... More >>

Tom Ammiano Tries, Tries Again With Marijuana Bill

Will Tom Ammiano's latest marijuana legislation puff, puff, pass? ​Everybody knows California is broke, and those same everybodies know that thar's a gold mine waiting to be unearthed -- when and if the state starts taxing adult-use recreational marijuana (everybody *could* also be wrong, but ... More >>

Workers of the World Unite -- Around a Joint -- as SEIU Endorses Prop. 19

Karl Marx would be proud​California's largest labor union is getting behind a ballot initiative that would allow governments within the state to regulate and tax marijuana, as the Service Employees International Union announced today that it would back Proposition 19 on this November's ballot.Obse ... More >>

'Marijuana Legalization Measure' Won't Legalize Marijuana

Say what? ​Should it be approved by voters in November, the Tax, Regulate and Control Cannabis Act of 2010 - also known as Proposition 19 - would do many things. It would allow adults 21 and over to possess small amounts of cannabis, it would allow law enforcement to pursue new penalties again ... More >>

Facebook Spurns Pro-Pot Ads. But You Still May See Them on Muni.

You won't be seeing this ad on Facebook anytime soon...​Pot delivery service owner says Muni has accepted his ads Facebook's not so special. Updates to your Farmville aside, the de rigueur social networking platform is behind the curve, at least when it comes to denying cannabis-related busin ... More >>

Marijuana Legalization Endorsed by San Francisco Democratic Party

​It may not be easy being green. But it was very easy for San Francisco's Democratic Party to give the official thumbs-up to a state proposition that would legalize the green. Proposition 19, aka Tax Cannabis 2010, won an overwhelming endorsement after San Francisco Democratic County Central Commi ... More >>