The meeting took place January 29 in a packed assembly room of the Santa Barbara County Administration Building deep in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara’s Spanish Colonial-style municipal nexus; six months later it still induces shudders among most everyone who endured it. Even Santa Barbara County Supervisor Steve Lavagnino, a man known for his unshakable affability, emerged shaken. Lavagnino chairs Santa Barbara’s five-member Board of Supervisors. In a previous life he worked as a stand-up comedian; as county supervisor, he often uses humor to disarm. But none of the people shoehorned int ..read more

No, this is not an April fool’s joke. The House passed legislation on Friday to legalize marijuana across the United States and stamp out longstanding criminal penalties for distribution and possession, according to The Hill. The bill, titled the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, passed 220-204, with three Republicans voting in favor of it and two Democrats voting against it. The Republicans who joined in support all were Florida Reps. Matt Gaetz and Biran Mast, along with Tom McClintock of California. Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar (TX) and Chris Pappas (NH) were ..read more

When California voters legalized recreational marijuana with the passage of Proposition 64 in November, 2016, pot users and those who service them looked forward to a kind of weed renaissance in which dangerous dealing in dubious strains would be a thing of the past. Five years later, users and providers alike have seen that dream wrecked by an unconscionable bureaucracy, outlandish taxes and fees, crushing competition from the black market, and more taxes. Today, the state’s illegal marijuana market is worth an estimated $8 billion, roughly double that of legal sales, the Associated Press rep ..read more

Standing along the bustling corridor of Crenshaw Boulevard in South Los Angeles is the first Black-female owned dispensary in the city, according to its owner Kika Keith. Keith opened the shop through a city program that was designed to make cannabis business ownership more accessible to low-income people and communities impacted by the criminalization of cannabis. But the very program that was trying to right the wrongs of the past instead became another obstacle for business owners like Keith. For three years, their shop sat mostly empty with its store front windows covered up and a poster t ..read more

This spring, Dosist became the only cannabis brand with two of its very own storefronts in Los Angeles—but don’t call it a cannabis brand. Known for its sleek, color-coded pens that vibrate when you’ve inhaled a full “dose” of THC-infused vapor, the company opened a second retail location on West Third Street in the Fairfax District to reach a clientele east of its Abbot Kinney flagship. Even the greenest (by which we mean newest) cannabis user won’t be intimidated or overwhelmed by the Dosist shopping experience. The achromatic, minimalist-as-hell store is stocked exclusively with the six var ..read more