420 FILE--According to the Attorney General's annual crime report for 2017, arrests for marijuana offenses dropped precipitously in California following the passage of Proposition 64, which legalized the recreational use for adults in November 2016.

420 FILE--Regulators at the US Food and Drug Administration on Monday granted market approval to Epidiolex, a prescription medicine containing a standardized formulation of plant-derived cannabidiol (CBD) for the explicit treatment of two rare forms of severe epilepsy: Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome.

420 FILE--It’s no secret that the City of Los Angeles has struggled with implementing its commercial cannabis program under the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Act (“MAUCRSA“).

POT PERMIT WATCH-Time to overhaul the cannabis department and the system of permits and licensing of pot in Los Angeles. 

GUEST COMMENTARY-So here we are, the end of April 2018. The State law legalizing marijuana sales took effect January 1. To date, LA City has issued a total of 142 permits. 

420 FILE—(Ed Note: The LA Times headline on April 23: “LA has yet to license a single marijuana manufacturer, leaving businesses shut out of the city’s legal market.”  Budget Advocate Co-Chair Jay Handal is not surprised.) 

420 FILE--Drugs and crime: The two phenomena have been linked for so long that many assume one inevitably leads to the other. Attorney General Jeff Sessions insists legalizing marijuana can inspire violent activity, while some in Colorado have linked legal pot to that state's increase in crime.

DEEGAN ON LA-Bring in the bean counters, or would that be the bud counters? Now that recreational marijuana is legal in California, thanks to overwhelming passage of Prop M that was approved by 80% of the voters last March, there will be a steady flow of new tax revenues streaming into the City and the State. 

420 FILE--Cannabis consumers soon should be able to shop at licensed stores in California without worrying about whether products on the shelves are laced with pesticides and other contaminants often found in black-market weed.

420 FILE--Just weeks after a California measure legalizing the use of recreational marijuana went into effect, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón announced on Wednesday that the city will wipe clean the records of thousands of individuals who have been charged with marijuana-related misdemeanors and felonies over the past several decades.

NEIGHBORHOOD POLITICS--The County of Los Angeles has made public input a priority as it grapples with the complicated and historic work of developing regulations for newly legalized cannabis in the unincorporated areas of the county.

POLICING THE POLICE-News reports last week suggest the city of Oakland may be ready to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the teenage woman at the heart of a sex-abuse scandal that rocked Oakland’s and other nearby police departments since 2015. 

All things considered, the city is fortunate. The reported settlement is just under $1 million, far below the $66 million she had originally sought. 

CONNECTING CALIFORNIA--Dig deep enough into any of California’s biggest problems, and you’ll eventually hit upon a common villain: our court system.

THE POLITICS OF RACISM-I wanted to believe that Jeff Sessions is not a racist. I wanted to believe that even if he was a racist as a young man that he has since converted to a higher plane of thinking. I wanted to believe that he is a changed man because I believe that anyone is capable of redemption. After-all, St. Paul hunted down early Christians. Tolstoy was a slave owner. And Nelson Mandela almost blew up a school bus as a terrorist. We are all capable of undergoing unfathomable transformation if divine grace and luck have their way. 

GOLDEN STATE’S NEW INDUSTRY--If you’ve got more than a few questions about California’s new recreational cannabis policy, you’re certainly not the only one. Millions somewhat naively expected to wake up January 1 with a booming recreational cannabis industry blossoming all around them. In reality, things aren’t nearly as simple.

ALPERN AT LARGE--Seriously?  No foolin'?  Is "California Dreamin’" really doomed to devolve into one big marijuana-hazed April Fools Day joke, with those still sober stuck with the choice of living in, or fleeing from, the California Twilight Zone?