Cannabis Law Group's Medical Marijuana Legal Blog
California Marijuana Industry Bracing for Potential DoJ Crackdown
The California Department of Justice recently released a summary review of the state’s marijuana laws, leaving cannabis industry insiders are anticipating a crackdown on the black market.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s 16-page document is being referred to as California’s Marijuana Bible summarizes state laws and draws clearer lines as to what is legal – and what’s not – when it comes to medical cannabis. The guidelines are especially focused on the growth, enforcement, transportation and use of medicinal marijuana, and they come after significant changes in the state’s laws pertaining to recreational cannabis.
The record scans through two decades of state law, regulations and guidelines of the growth, sale and transport of medicinal marijuana. Although the Attorney General’s Office referred to it as a reflection on the evolution of the state’s laws, many cannabis lawyers and others see it as a warning shot to unlicensed marijuana operations. Continue reading
California has kicked off a multi-lingual public awareness campaign, urging cannabis users throughout the state to ensure they’re purchasing from legal dispensaries.
There are a variety of reasons why people supported Proposition 64, otherwise known as the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. Some people realize that marijuana is not dangerous and there is no reason it should be outlawed. Other voters, do not necessarily love the idea of people smoking marijuana, but realize that it is going to happen regardless and this way we are not spending billions on a so-called war on drugs that is clearly not working. Not only was the state losing money on enforcement, the state was also losing money to the black market, as they were not able to tax marijuana. 
The new regulations will cover various aspects of the recreational sale of marijuana. This includes recreational use marijuana cultivators, distributors, manufacturers, testing centers, and other parts of the marijuana business. 
As discussed in this article, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Alameda rank at the top of this list in terms of medical marijuana sales with Los Angeles being the highest on the list. With the medical marijuana business growing to this level over the past two decades, tax revenues have grown, as well, and this is part of the reason for the community support we are seeing for the legalization of recreational marijuana. 
The first problem that affects states all over the country is that federal law prohibits the transportation (trafficking) of medical marijuana across state lines. This means that any medical cannabis sold in the state must be grown and processed in the state as well. This means that there must be grow operations, and the state decided that that there should 15 of them. This is more than other states, but it still makes for a very competitive and potentially politically charged process. 
While opponents used to argue that it was a just a few very liberal states such as California that allowed people to use medical marijuana, that is no longer an argument that one can seriously make. According a recent News Article for the 
These days, the medical cannabis industry has a wide range of high-end products to treat all sorts of serious medical conditions. For example, actor Patrick Stewart of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” fame has said that using a medical cannabis spray is the only thing that gets his hands to stop hurting so that he can use them, due his severe arthritis.