Oakland has become the second city in the US to decriminalize magic mushrooms and other psychedelics, with a policy that activists hope will spark a national legalization movement. The measure comes after voters in Denver approved a similar ballot initiative to decriminalize psilocybin, which supporters say can help treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions. The Oakland measuredecriminalizes adult use of psychoactive plants and fungi, including mushrooms, cacti, iboga and ayahuasca. Decriminalization means the city is effectively directing law enforcement not to investigate or prosecute people for the use, sale or distribution of these plants and fungi. The resolution cited research linking psychedelics and natural hallucinogens to a range of mental health benefits.

A Los Angeles government program set up to provide cannabis licenses to people harmed by the war on drugs has been plagued by delays, scandal and bureaucratic blunders, costing some intended beneficiaries hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. Black entrepreneurs and activists across LA said that the city’s embattled “social equity” program has left aspiring business owners on an indefinite waiting list, causing potentially irreparable damage to their families’ finances and preventing them from opening marijuana shops they have been planning for years. The community most disproportionately targeted by marijuana arrests is again facing discrimination.

San Francisco lost a total of 699 people to overdoses last year, a 59% rise from 2019, according to new data released by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. That number is more than three times the amount of people that died of COVID-19 in the city during the same period. It also represents 699 sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends and loved ones felled by an epidemic that the city has been unable to control. “It didn’t have to happen,” sighed Kristen Marshall, director of the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education Project, which manages the city’s overdose response. “The root of these overdose deaths in San Francisco is homelessness, poverty and racism that has been institutionalized throughout our systems of care.”

On 4/20, cannabis consumers across the United States will light one up in celebration of cannabis culture. In 10 states and counting, that celebration is perfectly legal. But as the annual ritual transitions from grassroots activism to commercialized indulgence, advocates want to remind consumers that the social justice work isn’t over just yet. On April 21, a coalition of justice and reform-minded organizations are launching what they’re calling the 421 For All campaign with a fundraiser designed to spotlight the ongoing need for comprehensive cannabis reform, especially in those states that have legalized but have yet to fulfill promises of “righting the wrongs of the drug war.” (See also: How the cannabis industry defeated legalization in New York)

Thanks to the most lenient policies in California for recreational marijuana, Santa Barbara county is now the state’s undisputed capital of legal cannabis, boasting more acres than each of the the storied Emerald Triangle counties of Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino. Santa Barbara voters overwhelmingly backed California’s legalisation of recreational marijuana in 2016, with hopes that the cannabis boom would bring tax revenue and new jobs to the county. The transformation has been fast and furious. Santa Barbara county is now home to around a third of all cultivation licenses issued in California, despite making up only 1.8% of the state’s land, with some megafarms stretching over dozens of acres.

It’s been five years since the Canadian government legalized and regulated non-medical cannabis cultivation, commerce, and consumption. California is ahead of us by two years, having followed a similar experiment in 2016 when it legalized recreational cannabis. Today, California and Canada are facing similar challenges though they have adopted vastly different regulations. The two jurisdictions offer an interesting contrast in how regulatory frameworks can support or undermine a nascent legal cannabis industry. Evidence from the past five years suggests that the regulations have failed to provide equitable access to the industry and develop balanced tax structures. Legalization in Canada and California also remains hampered by the legacy of global cannabis prohibition.

Last week was a wild one for MedMen, the multistate cannabis retailer based in Culver City, California. As CEO Adam Bierman was getting ready to do a Reddit AMA ("Ask Me Anything") a character named Jason Spatafora tweeted out copies of emails that, Spatafora claimed, showed that the company was unable to pay vendors in cash, and was offering to give them shares of its depleted stock instead. Like a lot of cannabis companies, MedMen grew too big, too fast, as Bierman himself reluctantly admitted. Now, he said, the goal is "sustainability." The company, 10 years old, runs about 30 stores across the country, as well as large cultivation facilities. (See also: Nickeled and Dymed - The collapse of Dionymed Brands (DYME) highlights the factors at work in the great cannabis crash)

California’s legal cannabis industry, not yet 4 years old, yearns for the same system of tying plants to the soil perfected by the French over centuries and a key to the marketing success of the state’s premium wine grape growers. The cornerstone of France’s appellation system is terroir — a word with no English equivalent but loosely translated as “sense of place” — based on the premise that soil, climate and topography endow grapes with unique characteristics.To qualify for an appellation of origin, basically a geographic identity, cannabis products would have to be made exclusively from plants grown in the ground, in open air and under nothing but sunshine until harvest. (See also: New California law gives regional title for marijuana branding)

Five years after cannabis legalization, California is awash with signs of an apparently booming industry. Californians can toke on Justin Bieber-branded joints and ash their blunts in Seth Rogen’s $95 ceramics. They can sip on THC-infused seltzers, relax inside a cannabis cafe, and get edibles delivered to their doors. But behind the flashy facade, the legal weed industry remains far from the law-abiding, prosperous sector many had hoped for. In fact, it’s a mess. Voters passed a law in November 2016 making recreational marijuana legal. But today, the vast majority of the market remains underground – about 80-90% of it, according to experts. (See also: ‘A farce of social equity’: California is failing its Black cannabis businesses)

California’s marijuana market is borrowing a page from the state’s world-famous wine industry thanks to a new law intended to help outdoor cannabis growers brand and market their products by highlighting where and how they’re produced. When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 67 on Sept. 30, the law established that any cannabis product claiming an “appellation of origin” from a California region must have been grown in the soil and with the sun from that region – in other words, without artificial light or shelter, such as a greenhouse or hoop house. California is leading the way with this legislation, and other West Coast states, including Oregon and Washington state, might take notice. Such designations can help smaller growers distinguish their cannabis.

California's legal pot market opens for business on Jan. 1. The day will be a milestone, but what exactly will happen then and, especially, in the weeks and months to come is unclear. Lori Ajax, the state's top pot regulator, has been at the center of the effort to establish rules for a legal pot economy valued at $7 billion. Businesses are required to have a local permit and a state license to open their doors for recreational sales, and that process has moved slowly. State law has specific guidelines for where not to light up, and they include being within 1,000 feet of a school or a daycare center when kids are around, or smoking while driving. (See also: Lawmakers, pot growers say California's marijuana cultivation rules favor big corporate farms)

In 2016, Californians voted to legalize recreational adult-use marijuana. Proponents of Proposition 64, including then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, argued that it would generate massive revenue, while decreasing illicit cannabis and drug cartel activity in California. Now, nearly six years later, it’s clear that promise has not been kept. While the state has collected billions in tax revenue from cannabis sales since legalization went into effect in 2018, billions more continue to pour into a thriving illicit market. A new report from cannabis website Leafly found that more than half of all cannabis sales in the state (55%) are in the illegal market. It means the product being sold hasn’t been subjected to the state’s rigorous testing and tracking regimen, and can contain harmful pesticides or other powerful narcotics.

The cannabis industry’s moral challenge is to ensure the groups who have suffered the most under the drug war can participate in the green rush and enjoy the spoils of legalization. Marijuana insiders often refer to the “cannabis space” – a term broad enough to include a social justice movement and unapologetic capitalism – and recognize no contradiction between them. For growers who operated in California’s gray and illegal markets and now want to transition into the legal market, the economics can be brutal. In the illegal market, an Emerald Triangle farmer might have sold a pound for $3,000 tax-free. Now the price is more like $600, before taxes and compliance related costs. (See also: High stakes: cannabis capitalists seek funds to drive drug trade)

Wholesale cannabis prices could hit as low as $30 an ounce in some parts of the U.S. as another record crop of outdoor cannabis floods markets and sinks prices. The legal recreational market in Oregon continues to drown in a multi-year surplus. Oregon produced 10 times the cannabis it needs each year, and approximately 825,000 pounds of unsold dried wholesale flower now sits in the state’s tracking system, says Jonathan Rubin, CEO of Cannabis Benchmarks, which tracks wholesale prices. The trends point to what many people expected: a segmentation of the flower market into commodity products and, importantly, premium craft products that consumers will pay top dollar for at retail.

Se suponía que la legalización del cannabis enriquecería a una gran cantidad de empresarios, incluidos los operadores «heredados», un eufemismo tímido para lo que solía llamarse traficantes y cultivadores ilegales. Se suponía que tomaría algo usado ampliamente y borraría el elemento criminal de él. Gracias a una regulación excesiva, impuestos excesivos e inconsistencias que hay entre estado y estado, la mayor obviedad en la historia del capitalismo, legalizar la droga ilícita más popular del mundo, se está convirtiendo en una falla masiva del mercado. Alrededor del 95% de los cultivadores de cannabis de California tuvieron pérdidas el año pasado, según Jonathan Rubin, director ejecutivo de New Leaf Data Services, un rastreador de precios mayoristas de nivel institucional.

Voters in Denver, Colorado, made their city the first in the U.S. to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms by approving a ballot measure on the issue. Its provisions prohibit the city government from using any resources to impose criminal penalties against adults over 21 years of age for personal use and possession of psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called "magic mushrooms." Initiative 301 also specifies that going after people for the mushrooms is the city's “lowest law enforcement priority” and establishes a review panel to assess and report on the effects of the change by early 2021. The new ordinance is just one example of how drug policy reform activists are increasingly setting their sights beyond marijuana. (See also: Denver first in U.S. to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms)

There is ample evidence that irresponsibleoutdoor cultivation can also be environmentally destructive, leading some to argue that indoor cultivation is better for the environment because it ostensibly uses less land (thanks to higher yields) and less water (thanks to less evaporation). But in reality, if best practices are followed, the opposite is true. Moreover, the vastly lower startup and operating costs for outdoor farms also lessen the steep inequities that nonwhite owners of businesses face in obtaining financing. Indoor growers insist that their methods are essential in order to avoid the weather risks tolerated by other farmers, achieve uniformly attractive products, boost potency, maximize profits, and enhance security. There are strong counterarguments in each case.

"The war on drugs has failed," said a recent report compiled by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which comprised a former UN secretary-general, former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, a former US Secretary of State and a host of public intellectuals, human rights activists and politicians.