In Northern California, weed and wine rule the land. With cannabis legalization officially on the books though, and a regulated retail market on the near horizon, worrisome reports have set vino and bud as rivals fighting over employees and intoxication-industry market share.

This coming Thursday, stoners all over the world will get together to celebrate 4/20. In San Francisco, that means a pilgrimage to Golden Gate Park’s Hippie Hill, where thousands gather annually to smoke, dance, celebrate, and be left alone by local cops.

Say goodbye to citations and hello to handcuffs, Tennessee. According to the Tennessean, Governor Bill Haslam signed a law on Wednesday that effectively nullifies city-sanctioned cannabis decriminalization in the state’s two largest cities.

It was big news in Texas yesterday when local legislators in Dallas passed a decriminalization law aimed at keeping low-level possession offenders out of jail. In states without medical or recreational weed laws on the books, decriminalization goes a long way in protecting cannabis users from the long reach of the War on Drugs.

The Canadian government has introduced two long-expected bills that would legalize recreational marijuana across the country by next July.

“Despite decades of criminal prohibition, Canadians – including 21% of our youth and 30% of young adults – continue to use cannabis at among the highest rates in the world,” said MP and former Toronto police chief Bill Blair. “The proposed legislation, which is introduced today, seeks to legalize, strictly regulate and restrict access to cannabis.”

The responsibilities of legalization would be divided between state and local governments.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, white youth are more likely to abuse hard drugs than blacks of the same age group, shattering a common racial stereotype.

Researchers at Northwestern University interviewed 1,829 young people between the ages of 10 and 18 who were detained at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center in Chicago between 1995 and 1998. Researchers then interviewed the participants over a twelve-year period, contacting some of them as many as 9 times during that period.

A legislative proposal from California’s Governor Jerry Brown that would reconcile aspects of the state’s medical and recreational cannabis industries is under fire from all sides as lawmakers, marijuana advocates, and police officials alike worry that the bill is too hands off and gives too much power to canna-businesses.

As we reported last week, the Governor’s bill (a trailer to the state’s annual budget) would allow individuals an unlimited number of cannabis licenses, allow cultivators to act as their own distributors, and remove permitting regulations that require local municipalities to approve pot shops before they can acquire a state

Lead image via Wikimedia Commons

All of America was troubled by the video of Chicago airline police assaulting United Airlines passenger David Dao last week. Sadly, incidents like these seem to be more and more common across the country. This is only one of many egregious and ridiculous overreaches by police since President Trump took office in January. The self-proclaimed “law and order candidate” has gone so far as to name some of his executive orders after the “blue lives matter” movement.

While Colorado was poised to become the first state in the nation to legalize Amsterdam-style coffee shops, the state’s legislative forces have decided to pull the plug on this idea for fear that it could invite Trump’s Justice Department to come marching in.

According to the Associated Press, Colorado lawmakers have backed off their plan to put a social use policy on the books that would allow people to consume marijuana in some public places.

The proposal, which was brought to the table with bipartisan support, would have allowed adults to bring their own weed into public establishments and

On Thursday, stoners around the planet will be rolling joints, packing bowls, baking edibles, and passing the dutchie on the left hand side to celebrate 4/20, the high holy day of cannabis. While we love getting blazed with our closest friends on this annual celebration of kush culture, this year’s a bit different from 4/20s past. In the U.S. we have a new president, and unfortunately it seems he and his pals aren’t as chill with weed as our last head-of-state.

Colorado’s legislative forces want to ensure that their recreational cannabis industry is safe, just in case President Trump and his U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, decide to get squirmy in the coming months and lash out against it.

On Wednesday, the Colorado Senate put its seal of approval on a measure that would allow pot businesses to scrub their association with the recreational sector and join the ranks of the medical marijuana industry.