PROFILE
FROM Peter Hecht
California takes lessons from Colorado on legal marijuana Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper met with California lawmakers this week to discuss recreational weed. Colorado legalized the drug in 2012, and Hickenlooper said the state made a lot of mistakes while rolling out its policies. Lawmakers in California are scrambling to figure out regulations before full legalization next year.
California friends imprisoned for pot dispensary, seek clemency President Obama has granted clemency to more than 1300 people. A pair of friends in Modesto hope to get on that list. In 2004, Luke Scarmazzo and Ricardo Montes opened a pot dispensary. Cash poured in, and they paid themselves $13,000 each per month. One of them even posted a music video on YouTube, bragging about his money and flipping off the feds. Then the feds showed up. The friends were found guilty of running a criminal enterprise and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Banning weed before next week’s election Prop 64 would legalize recreational marijuana statewide, and cities could make their own rules around the growth, sale and use of weed. But some cities are pre-emptively banning the sale of recreational pot until they can figure out what they want to do locally.
Inside California's Pot Industry Chances are good that Californians will vote to legalize pot this November. A proposed ballot measure has wide support. Twenty years ago, Californians approved the measure that legalized medical marijuana use, and since then those working in the cannabis industry have been operating in a kind of hazy legal zone. State lawmakers never bothered to clear that up, until last fall, when Governor Brown signed legislation to establish clear guidelines and regulations for the industry. In the process, he may have ushered in an era of “Big Pot” in California. What happens next?
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