| HN Mirror

>Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see what the federal legal response will be to the various medical cannabis related startups i've seen popping up. In general, it looks like the road to legalization is pretty open (well, if stoners voted and orange county didn't...), but production and distribution still need to be addressed if you're really going to remove the criminal element (which you should).

>Anyone know anything about the current legal climate around cannabis in California? Specifically, increase/decrease in raids/legitimacy/rules of/around medical dispensaries and current situation wrt supplying them?

In 2006-2008, Obama said that he would not prosecute medical marijuana operations that were operating under state law.

However, over the last five years, the administration has been responsible for a number of raids (most famously Haborside and Oaksterdam). These raids were conducted on the grounds that the dispensaries were in violation of tax policies. However, this was an underhanded trick: the dispensaries had no legal way of complying with the policies in question - they were in a catch-22.

By doing it this way, they were able to continue raids, while still paying lip service to the letter of Obama's campaign promises, while completely disregarding the spirit of them.

The last time I saw a comparison was sometime in early 2012. At the time. Obama was rated as the least marijuana-friendly president since Clinton[0].

Suppliers (growers) are even more vilified than dispensaries. The further away you get from the patients, the easier it becomes to distract people from the actual patients who suffer and instead beat the "drugs are evil" drum.

[0] The first medical marijuana laws as we know them today were passed (at the state level) during Clinton's administration