Standing outside of a Sacramento medical cannabis dispensary, you might detect something in the air. No, it's not secondhand THC vapor — public medicating is prohibited in the county. What you sense is a shift in perspective. Public pressure is building for the legalization and regulation of one of the oldest cash crops in America: the plants of genus Cannabis. The US federal government has held since 1970 that cannabis is a danger to public health and safety and listed the annual flowering herb under US code as having "high potential for abuse" and "no accepted medical potential." "A lot of people are thinking that federal drug laws are arbitrary and now we're starting to see the transl

Medical cannabis in California wouldn't be what it is today if it wasn't for Ryan Landers. The Sacramento activist helped to develop the laws, policies and realities of medical marijuana in a career of activism that spans more than a decade. He was there to help roll Proposition 215 into motion in 1996 and had a significant hand in crafting SB 420 in 2003. "I live the cause," he said. "When I'm not out testifying or counseling or negotiating for the cause, I'm just home and sick." He's a 15-year survivor of HIV/AIDS, a personal fact that he doesn't usually publicize partly due to prior experience. Landers, now 37, became a member of Californians for Compassionate Use in 1995. CCU is the

During Tuesday night's hearing, the Sacramento City Council voted unanimously to extend the citywide moratorium on medical cannabis dispensary openings and expansion for ten months and fifteen days, totaling a year of halted development. The city is now 42 days into the moratorium's original 45. In that time, city government has been collecting information on cannabis clubs and invited existing dispensaries to register themselves within 30 days, a time window that closed on August 16. The registration has ceased; the research has not. "We felt that 45 days was just too short," said City Special Projects Manager Michelle Heppner, who helped conduct the fact-finding mission. "Things moved

Regardless of the smoldering controversy cannabis stirs up in Sacramento City Hall, the state Capitol and Washington D.C., the global scientific community has examined the drug with increasing interest recently. Local patients and doctors can't say enough about the groundbreaking potential of THC as a pharmaceutical. Cannabis is handled at Oaksterdam University in Oakland. There's a fairly large medical cannabis community in Sacramento, of patients, caregivers and researchers. Some dispensaries work directly with patients and doctors to bridge the gap between medical knowledge and social support. Sacramento resident Thomas Coy has worked with the Capitol Wellness dispensary since it

As part of the fact-finding process of the cannabis dispensary moratorium, the Sacramento city government is taking a look at how, exactly, medical pot stores operate. Without many precedents to refer to, dispensaries don't have solidly established business practices. All dispensaries are somewhat similar, but none are alike. Dispensaries all have the same basic foundation. By state law, pot shops must be collectives or cooperatives of medicinal cannabis patients. After ill Californians get cannabis recommendations, they have the ability to medicate and cultivate as they see fit. Last year, California Attorney General Jerry Brown published some guidelines on how many plants (six) and how

Cloned cannabis plants at Canna Care Munching on a herbal brownie at El Camino Wellness Center, AAMC state director Ryan Landers explained how tricky and self-conflicting medicinal cannabis laws are. "In Sacramento County, publicly smoking medicinal cannabis is considered ten 10 times worse than just smoking weed," he said. Landers has been a medicinal cannabis activist for over 15 years and has worked extensively in drafting legislation and law enforcement plans for the new dimension of legal medicine. He works with patients and patients' rights groups, lobbies and national advocacy groups. If weed was legal expertise, he'd be "the guy on the corner." Regarding the legal gap betwe

Approaching an unassuming commercial building in a quiet part of town, you might think to double-check the address -- is this really a cannabis dispensary? It's just another discreet storefront surrounded by small-scale businesses. Where are the glaring neon lights, the billows of heavy smoke, the muggers, the hustlers, the junkies, the wild pot-smoking depravity in the streets? And then you realize: it's just another pharmacy, man. To Californians without the cannabis card, the idea of a cannabis dispensary is a funny sort of abstraction - a fantastical "pot store" that D.A.R.E. education and anti-drug advertising never anticipated. Medicinal cannabis dispensaries can be found in 13

Although the medicinal use of cannabis has been legal in California since 1996, in Sacramento there's a growing concern over the uncertainty that surrounds local cannabis clubs — nonprofit clinics that sell cannabis in various forms to qualifying patients. On Tuesday night, the Sacramento City Council voted unanimously to adopt a 45-day moratorium on the development of medical cannabis dispensaries in the city. No new dispensaries can be created and existing dispensaries will be unable to physically expand their operation, though they can still take on new clients. The moratorium is intended to investigate the current status and number of medical cannabis clubs in the city to better info