Is California on the Path to Decriminalize Psychedelics?

Since the state of California legalized marijuana in 2016, the discussion has shifted towards decriminalizing psychedelics. So, in February 2021, SB-519, a bill aiming to decriminalize possession of psychedelic drugs, was introduced in the California Senate by Scott Wiener. Now, California California State Senator Scott Wiener is moving forward with it. This bill provides a […]

Stop Treating Marijuana Use Like Doping

In June last year, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson won the women’s 100-meter race at the U.S. track and field finals, earning a trip to the Olympics as a gold medal favorite. That is, until her Olympic dream crumbled: Richardson tested positive for marijuana, a Performance Enhancing Drug (PED) according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the […]

Racial Inequalities Permeate the Legal Marijuana Market

The date April 20th seems to be a holiday at the University of California, Berkeley and various other college campuses throughout the state. Walking through campus on this unofficial holiday will lead to encounters with dozens of food trucks and tables occupied by eager students trying to sell their snacks for those suffering from “munchies,” […]

Prop 64: Normalizing, Not Just Legalizing

Customers line up at Harvest in San Francisco, one of the businesses which seeks to change the face of marijuana within California. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File) The fire in Big Sur won’t be the only thing burning this year; The Adult Use of Marijuana Act 2016 (AUMA), also known as California Proposition 64, passed on November […]

A Blunt Look at the Marijuana Industry

Snoop Dogg is doing it. Peter Thiel is doing it. No longer are drug dealers the only people who may profit off this lucrative plant. The marijuana industry has swelled in recent years as weed becomes legal both medically and recreationally in more states, and people are increasingly seeing it as an opportunity for investment. […]

Courting Controversy

The California State Legislature took its interim study recess on September 11 and will reconvene on January 4. The first year of this session was full of drama, much of which will play out in the next couple of weeks, as the deadline for Governor Jerry Brown to sign or veto bills on his desk […]

Ending the War on Drugs: A Bipartisan Issue

While the recent media buzz has focused on the Republicans’ takeover of Congress in the 2014 elections, community leaders and criminal justice advocates alike are celebrating the victories in efforts to end the war on drugs, specifically regarding the legalization of marijuana. In Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, and Washington D.C., measures concerning the legalization of […]

Devil’s Advocate: Should editorialists disclose political affiliations?

I wasn’t planning on writing another Devil’s Advocate so soon after the first one, but the combination of disgraced Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson‘s partisan lies about Obama making the cover of Newsweek as “editorial” and UC Berkeley’s own The Daily Californian publishing the anti-marijuana and anti-Rep. Barbara Lee lies of a non-expert named Roger Morgan […]