Unfortunately, the San Jose City Council jumped on the taxation bandwagon at Monday’s meeting. Councilmembers voted to place a tax of up to 10% on medical cannabis on the November ballot. Voters there should be suspicious. Taxation on medicine is ethically wrong, and rarely results in the real legal protections and social acceptance for which proponents hope. Fees calculated to cover the cost of local access programs are reasonable, but voters should reject a “sin tax” on doctor-recommended medical cannabis. Patients already pay sales tax. We should not put an additional burden on some of the most vulnerable citizens. Let’s hope citizens in San Jose see it that way when they vote next year.

Read the entire story online, including a quote from ASA’s Lauren Payne.

“Like most of the country, we had mixed feelings about the mid-term elections. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, there were gains and concessions, reliefs and disappointments. But there was one race that changed everything—one election that leveraged our movement so greatly things will never be the same.   

If you don’t live in California you may not have heard much about the race for Attorney General. Steve Cooley was running for AG with the most blatant anti-patient platform this country has ever seen. Hand picked by the cops and funded by rightwing political strategist Carl Rove, Cooley made no small effort to let voters know that if he were elected he would do everything in his power to eradicate medical marijuana for California…”

 Read the entire post on the ASA blog.

“More than three weeks after he declared victory in the race for state attorney general, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley conceded defeat Wednesday as he trailed by more than 50,000 votes in one of the closest statewide races in California history…”

Read the entire story online.