Former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and her husband Dr. Floyd Huen, along with partner Ryan Hudson of The Apothecarium, will have to look elsewhere with their hopes to open a medical marijuana dispensary after last night's Board of Supervisors meeting. The meeting was a late and emotional one, as SF Weekly reports, with marijuana advocates facing off with Outer Sunset residents and marijuana foes, and the Board ultimately voting 9 to 2 against approving what would be a third location for the swanky pot emporium after a recent (and hard-won) expansion to the Marina.

Only Supervisors Malia Cohen and Jeff Sheehy voted in favor of the dispensary, which had been the target of a negative lobbying campaign by the somewhat shadowy Pacific Justice Institute — a conservative religious group based in Sacramento that previously filed a lawsuit over the Dolores Park pissoir.

Quan's dispensary had seemed ready to roll after getting easy approval by the Planning Commission in July, with plans to provide Cantonese speakers to help the Chinese-American population in the Outer Sunset better understand the benefits of medical cannabis.

In a weird twist, the Chronicle kinda jumped the gun on their report of the meeting, which assumed the dispensary would be approved unanimously, and published and tweeted a story saying so before the vote was even taken. Not sure what happened there, but the story has since been corrected.

As the Examiner reports, the Pacific Justice Institute was hired by the Ark of Hope Preschool, which argued during the hearing that the dispensary was too close to it and a church. Huen, speaking the Examiner, blamed the anti-LGBT group for "whipping up" Sunset residents to oppose the dispensary.

An attorney for the group spoke at the hearing saying "In the eyes of federal law, the Apothecarium is no different than the street corner crack dealer."

Supervisor Katy Tang spoke out against the group but still said that she had heard from "an overwhelming majority of people who live in the Sunset" that they opposed this dispensary.

This was among the last dispensaries in the pipeline to receive a hearing ahead of a 45-day moratorium that the supervisors approved ahead of the coming full legalization of recreational pot, which takes effect January 1.

Previously: Jean Quan's Sunset Pot Shop Ready To Roll After Planning Commission Approval

Touting their supposed efficacy in treating certain illnesses, a Monterey County man has proposed a measure for California's ballot that would legalize consumption of psilocybins, aka "magic mushrooms."

CBS 5 reports that the proposed ballot measure was filed Friday, with hopes that it would appear on the 2018 ballot.

According to the initiative, which you can read in full here, adults over the age of 21 "would be exempted from criminal penalties" for use, "possession, sale, transport and cultivation of Psilocybin."

The man behind the measure is Monterey County resident Kevin Saunders, who's been a candidate for mayor of the city of Marina, among many other things.

From a 2016 KSBW report:

[Saunders] is banned from Starbucks coffee shops worldwide. Saunders served a month in jail after pleading no contest to violating a restraining order and harassing the manager of a Marina Starbucks.

Saunders is also banned from Monterey College of Law in Seaside, where he was expelled as a third-year law student.

According to KSBW, Saunders drew criticism last November when he reportedly targeted Monterey County Weekly reporter Sara Rubin with an "anti-Semitic rant" in which he said “Send this shill back to Jersey or Haaretz” and “These J’s will do just about anything to stop me."

Going back further to 2014, Saunders was sentenced to a month in jail for "violating a restraining order, making harassing phone calls and violation elections code," the Weekly reported at the time. He was also required to seek mental health counseling.

Fast-forward to today, and Saunders says he's now hard at work helping the mental health of everyone in California. According to the LA Times, in two studies published last November (you can read them here):

Trial subjects who received a single moderate-to-large dose of psilocybin got substantial and lasting relief from their profound distress. Among 80 cancer patients who participated in the two trials, as many as 4 in 5 continued to feel measurably less hopeless and demoralized six months after taking the drug than they had upon their recruitment.

For his part, Saunders told the LA Times that "using mushrooms helped him stop using heroin 15 years ago."

“I think we’re seeing something that could literally heal our brothers and sisters," he told the Times. "We’re talking about real cutting-edge stuff."

But before that happens, Saunders will need 365,880 valid signatures to get the measure on the ballot for the November 6, 2018 general election. But Saunders seems ready for the challenge, as he says the time is right for his proposal.

"It’s a natural progression from marijuana legalization," he told the Times. "I think that we are having an opportunity to lead the discussion."

Related: Coyotes, Possibly High On Magic Mushrooms, Attacking Cars Near Stinson Beach

Step right up, aspiring San Francisco proprietors of dime bags, hash oils, pot brownies, and pre-rolled blunts! Your permit process for the recreational sale of schwag is falling into place, in advance of recreational marijuana sales becoming legal this January 1. The three-person Office of Cannabis proposed by Mayor Lee is officially a thing. The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the Office of Cannabis on Tuesday according to ABC 7, creating a so-called “one-stop shop” to handle cannabis business applications, serve as a conduit to state regulatory departments, and handle the potential (and inevitable) residents’ complaints. The go-ahead on the Office of Cannabis includes the rubber-stamping of the $700,000 that Mayor Lee had earmarked in his budget to fund this dope department.

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That sum includes a phat $207,677-a-year Director of the Office of Cannabis position, the Examiner reports, with a total of $472,465 slated for City Hall cannabis bureaucrats. These three new bureaucrats would be authorized to “issue, deny, condition, suspend, or revoke cannabis-related permits in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.” They’re also tasked with proposing permit fees and structures by November 1, a pretty tight timeline considering that recreational sales will become legal two months later on January 1, 2018.

According to the Chronicle, San Francisco currently has 39 permitted dispensaries, with 28 more pending dispensary applications in the pipeline.

The establishment of this office does not mean a marijuana sales free-for-all, and there are still some sticky issues with neighborhood concerns.

Supervisor Ahsha Safai’s District 11 has three dispensaries within a roughly one-mile mile stretch of Mission Street, earning the doobie-ous nickname “Dispensary Row”. Safai wants to cap the number of dispensaries in his district at just those three, a proposal to be considered at tomorrow night’s Planning Commission meeting. Planning will also discuss a moratorium on issuing new dispensary permits until all of San Francisco’s new recreational weed regulations are determined.

Safai does advocate for grandfathering in current medical dispensaries for recreational sales, and giving them top priority to sell pot over the counter under the new recreational rules.

“They have been vetted, they've gone through the process, they've been authorized by the Planning Department," Safai told ABC 7. "The operators have had their backgrounds vetted."

Despite the establishment of an Office of Cannabis, the recreational reefer regulatory framework is still about as clear as smoke — just reading this article, you’ll notice that the “one stop shop” has more than one stop. The Supervisors are debating marijuana laws and the Planning Commission is also debating marijuana laws. On top of that, Tuesday’s Board vote also extended the life of the extremely redundant-sounding Cannabis Legalization Task Force (which was scheduled to be terminated in August, upon creation of this Office of Cannabis). That Task Force now continues to operate through the end of 2018, so we now have no fewer than four different ganja-governing bodies in the City and County of San Francisco whose debates, disagreements, and turf wars could render local marijuana policy quite hazy.

Related: New CA Marijuana Rules Would Raise Cost Of Pot, Eliminate Free Samples

The 1,000-foot rule for marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco dictates that pot clubs cannot operate with 1,000 feet of a school, playground, recreational center, or substance abuse treatment facility. (Though the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors may reduce that to a 600-foot rule) This creates little gluts of dispensaries in certain eligible areas, like the Outer Mission stretch dubbed “Dispensary Row”. A possible new Dispensary Row is creating a row in Vistacion Valley, where the Chronicle reports that residents are none too pleased with possibility of two dispensaries on the same block.

San Francisco currently has 36 medical marijuana dispensaries, with another 25 dispensary applications in the Planning Commission pipeline. On top of all that, a couple dozen more “letters of determination” have been submitted to Planning to assess the suitability of certain sites. Each of these aspiring dispensaries-to-be is assuming medical dispensaries will get grandfathered in for conversion into recreational-use dispensaries when adult over-the-counter sales become legal on January 1, 2018, per the passage of Prop. 64. The city has a deadline of September 1 to make that determination.

In January, the Planning Commission approved a dispensary permit for 2442 Bayshore Boulevard, the former Connie Hair Salon. Tonight the Planning Commission will consider another dispensary permit at 5 Leland Avenue — which is essentially on the very same Visitacion Avenue and Bayshore Boulevard block — which would require an additional permit because it’s within 500 feet with another approved dispensary.

“We have a lot of needs in this community — maybe a clothing store, a bookstore, stores for children, sporting goods,” retired schoolteacher and Vis Valley neighborhood activist Marlene Tran told the Chronicle. “Things that we can all patronize. Having a [medical cannabis dispensary] at the entrance to our commercial district will not benefit most people.”

Further, some locals feel that the 1,000-foot rule is being applied in lax fashion to their neighborhood as opposed to more upscale areas. They argue that two Vis Valley facilities — the Asian Pacific American Community Center and the Cross Cultural Family Center — are youth centers and should have automatically disqualified the dispensaries’ permit applications.

“There is a double standard,” attorney Teresa Li told the Chron. “Why is it OK to open a [dispensary] on Leland Avenue next to a child-care facility but not on Post Street? That is why we are seeing a concentration of (dispensaries) in low-income, minority neighborhoods. Our children don’t seem to matter as much.”

Reps from the potential 5 Leland Avenue dispensary counters that they’re finally bringing some action to a long-vacant space, and adding 15 new jobs to the neighborhood.

Pot patient and advocate David Goldman says Visitacion Valley ought to welcome dispensaries into empty, dilapidated storefronts on Bayshore Boulevard. ”They should be thrilled. There is not much going on in that neighborhood,” Goldman told the Chronicle. “They could use a few more businesses.”

Related: Girl Scouts Challenge Weed Dispensary To Fundraiser, Winner Gets The Cookies

The cost of smoking pot is about to get higher, at least in the near term, if draft rules for California's medical marijuana industry move forward, as appears likely. The proposed rules, which come from state regulators in three departments, are open to public comment for 45 days and could take effect by the end of 2018. Of course, California legalized recreational marijuana with Prop 64 in November, but recreational use and sales are likely to be brought into alignment with medical rules by legislation expected later in the year, the Chronicle reports.

Regulators say medical pot business owners might face added compliance costs of $524 per pound, or as much as $310,000 for an average-sized medical marijuana business. Smaller-sized businesses would be met with smaller fees, which lead the California Growers Association to approve the plan thus far.

The added compliance costs mean that prices for patients are about to increase roughly 10 percent, but with quantifiable benefits to consumers. "The consumer is also getting something for that premium price," Growers Association director Hezekiah Allen told the Chronicle, referring to "mandatory testing, knowledge and confidence the product was grown by folks [who] were following the rules and taxes were being paid.”

While Allen is vocal in his support, others like Mara Gordon, the founder of a cannabis-based medical oils company in Bodega Bay, are coming out against the THC limits, which "shows a lack of understanding of a medical patient’s need.”

“Our products, we call them bio-pharmaceutical products and we think of them as serious medicines for serious diseases,” Gordon, whose company is Aunt Zelda's, told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. “It’s all getting lumped together with the self-medicating person who is using a gummy bear.”

Meanwhile, the Fresno Bee reviewed the draft rules to point out some noteworthy new regulations.Those include rules against free samples from dispensaries, pot bicycle delivery, and even pot drone delivery. Glad someone is thinking ahead.

Previously: Barbary Coast, SF's Swanky New 'Speakeasy' Pot Lounge, Offering 4/20 Booth Reservations

Marijuana clouds are on the horizon: 4/20 approaches in less than a month, and this year, for the first time in San Francisco, the city will be permitting the annual smoke-in at Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park. CBS 5 confirms that news, which not coincidentally follows recreational pot legalization in California. And as Hoodline hinted yesterday, a permitted event will pave the way for sponsors like local Haight Street merchants who can help shoulder costs.

An estimated 8,000 people partook of 4/20 in the park last year, an event whose growing numbers have made it harder and harder for city departments to turn their usual blind eye. To clean up 11 tons of garbage stoned people left in the park last year cost the city $25,000.

Yearly talk about banning the event has gone nowhere: “We’ve had discussions about how to end this event," Mayor Lee tells CBS 5, "but the reality is that it would break into four or five different events and then we couldn’t control any of it.”

Sarah Madland, the Recreation and Parks Department's public affairs and policy director, tells the news station that formalizing the event could benefit all parties involved. “This has been a rogue kind of spontaneous thing... People come in and do everything they can to make a mess.” This year, she says, "Things like porta potties, trash cans, making sure there is a traffic plan, making sure there is an ambulance on site," will add to safety and cut down on costs that the event would likely incur anyway.

Alex Aquino, owner of Haight Street’s Black Scale clothing, is one sponsor going in on the event this year. “Basically we are trying to help the city and the park bring some infrastructure to make it safe and clean," he told CBS 5. Speaking to Hoodline, Aquino said Black Scale may provide fencing, security, and toilets.

One thing it might not be bringing to the park: Pot paraphernalia for sale at a vendor's table. Questions like that one are still being weighed by the city.

But at least Stanley Roberts won't have any excuse to wander around filming people doing illegal things, because it's all legal now.

Related: 4/20's Enormous Mess, By The Numbers

Capitalizing on an association between their popular cookies and ravenous stoners fostered in 2014 when a 13-year-old Girl Scout started selling Thin Mints and Tagalongs in front of Mission District medical marijuana dispensary The Green Cross, an entire SF Girl Scout troop upped the ante this year by challenging Market Street pot shop the Apothecarium to a fundraising challenge. Regardless of who raised the most dough, the real winner was Kindergarten to College "K2C" as the beneficiary of the fundraiser, a San Francisco municipal program to create a college savings account of $50 for every child entering kindergarten in San Francisco. But in the end, the bragging rights — and the wagered gift of fresh-baked cookies from the loser — went to the Girl Scouts.

Troop mother Carol Lei tells CBS 5, who had the heartwarming story, that the challenge provided a valuable teaching moment for her girls. "It was a great experience for me to bring my girls in front of a dispensary and have that conversation about drugs and people may be different and have certain needs,” said Lei.

Eliot Dobris, an Apothecarium representative, remarked on the value the experience held for the dispensary, too. "It’s a strong demonstration that dispensaries are safe places,” Dobris said.

That's a point the Apothecarium is emphasizing with particular urgency as it campaigns to open a new shop in the Outer Sunset against neighbor objections — with former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and her pot-advocate hubby, Dr. Floyd Huen attached as co-owners.

For the record, the donation page for the Apothecarium team is here, and it looks like these folks couldn't put down the bong and get up off the futon to fundraise. The troopers pulled ahead on their donation page by $200, and the Apothecarium team has some cookies to bake. "Obviously, they will be kid-friendly cookies," Says Dobris.

For the adult-friendly, in fact smokable version, card-carrying pot doers need look no further than the real lynchpin in the relationship between Girl Scout Cookies and reefer madness: The Cannabis Cup award-winning hybrid strain of an OG Kush and Durban Poison called — yep — Girl Scout Cookies.

Related: Former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan And Her Husband Plot Outer Sunset Pot Dispensary With Apothecarium Team

Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco who hopes to become California's Governor in 2018, hasn't been shy about his disgust with the White House, speaking out against GOP policies regarding LGBTQ folks on more than one occasion and donating the campaign cash he got from Donald Trump to immigration non-profits. And now the Lieutenant Governor is shaking a fist DC-ward yet again, this time over the administration's still-nascent crackdown on legal recreational marijuana use.

Newsom came out in favor of legal weed as his campaign began to ramp up, and was one of California's loudest voices in favor of the state's legalization measure, which was approved by voters last November. He was apparently as alarmed as the rest of us to hear White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (who should never, ever be referred to as "Sean Sphincter") say last week that the Department of Justice would go after users of recreational marijuana, even in states like California where the substance has been legalized.

As previously reported, Spicer had this to say on the topic Thursday:

There’s two distinct issues here: medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. I think medical marijuana, I’ve said before, that the president understands the pain and suffering that many people go through, who are facing especially terminal diseases, and the comfort that some of these drugs, including medical marijuana, can bring to them. And that’s one that Congress, through a rider in [2014], put an appropriations bill saying that the Department of Justice wouldn’t be funded to go after those folks.

There’s a big difference between that and recreational marijuana. And I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people. There’s still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.

By Friday, Newsom had penned a response to Spicer's vague statement on the topic, and sent it off to the White House with a CC to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Describing current federal pot laws as “draconian and prohibitionist," Newsom wrote that "The war on marijuana has failed. It did not, and will not, keep marijuana out of kids’ hands.”

“The government must not strip the legal and publicly supported industry of its business and hand it back to drug cartels and criminals. Dealers don’t card kids," wrote the father of four.

"I urge you and your administration to work in partnership with California and the other eight states that have legalized recreational marijuana for adult use in a way that will let us enforce our state laws that protect the public and our children, while targeting the bad actors.”

Responding to Spicer's remarks on the opioid addiction crisis, Newsom wrote that "marijuana is nothing like an opioid and there is no scientific evidence that marijuana use increases the use of opioids.”

“Unlike marijuana, opioids represent an addictive and harmful substance, and I would welcome your administration’s focused efforts on tacking this particular public health crisis,” he wrote. “We can’t continue to keep doing what we’ve done and expect a different result. A tightly regulated marketplace for adult recreational marijuana use is a new and better approach.”

You can read Newsom's full letter below:

Related: Pelosi, Newsom Respond To Trump Directive Reversing School Policy On Bathroom Use For Trans Students

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said WHAT? *devolves into uncontrollable, incredulous coughing*

Here's Vox quoting the Spiceguy:

There’s two distinct issues here: medical marijuana and recreational marijuana. I think medical marijuana, I’ve said before, that the president understands the pain and suffering that many people go through, who are facing especially terminal diseases, and the comfort that some of these drugs, including medical marijuana, can bring to them. And that’s one that Congress, through a rider in [2014], put an appropriations bill saying that the Department of Justice wouldn’t be funded to go after those folks.

There’s a big difference between that and recreational marijuana. And I think that when you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people. There’s still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and other drugs of that nature.

What, good sir, are you smoking?

Meanwhile Slate and others are pointing to a serious double standard in Spicers states' rights formulation.

Seeing as Attorney General Jeff "good people don't smoke marijuana" Sessions reportedly said he thought the KKK "were OK until I found out they smoked pot," good luck convincing him or this administration that the devastating effect of the war on drugs on non-white Americans was a bad thing, and that legalization and decriminalization can help.

Oh god. We'll have to see how much of this is just empty threat when the smoke clears, but it's notable in that it's the most threatening the administration has gotten on the subject so far.

Hold onto those medical pot cards for now, everyone.

Related: SF May Be Getting A Department Of Marijuana

The hits just keep coming for City College of San Francisco, which earlier this month retained its accreditation for the next seven years and recently received a $9 million earmark from the Board of Supervisors to fund free tuition for city residents. (Mayor Lee intends to redesignate those funds, though, so it’s hardly a done deal.) Now City College has announced a new curriculum designed to prepare students to join the budding cannabis industry, after the passage of Prop. 64 in November made recreational use of marijuana legal in California. In the state of California alone, cannabis is projected to blaze up $6.5 billion in sales by 2020 according to industry analyst Arcview Market Research.

“The emerging workforce opportunities with employers who dispense cannabis are a robust career opportunity for members of our communities,” CCSF spokesperson Jeffrey Hamilton told SFist.

The City College cannabis classes will not simply be sessions on how to grow weed. “The curriculum we are discussing will align to roles and responsibilities for Pharmacy Technicians, not cultivation,” Hamilton said.

While still in the planning phase, this is curriculum is being foreseen as a joint operation between the Oakland-based ‘cannabis college’ Oaksterdam University and the labor union United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) that represents marijuana workers. Enrollees will likely be required to be enrolled in a UFCW apprenticeship program.

“By creating a partnership, we will ensure that these opportunities are broadly announced and that the model includes a pathway to college,” Hamilton told SFist. “When we partnered with UFCW they had an already existing relationship with Oaksterdam which is why they are part of the program.”

In other words, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to just enroll for free-tuition cannabis courses with no prerequisite involvement in a cannabis industry union. That said, prerequisites are still not stoned-in for these courses that would that are slated to begin in the spring 2018 semester.

“We are still in discussions about how to structure the partnership,” according to Hamilton. “As currently envisioned, initially the apprenticeship would be based on an ‘employment first’ model which means employers hire apprentices who then ‘earn and learn’ concurrently.”

A cannabis curriculum might sound like a cheap and gimmicky way to attract students wishing to "major in marijuana," but City College is probably being quite shrewd to create apprenticeship programs and Pharm Tech curricula around the industry. California already generates nearly the triple the amount of cannabis revenue than the next-highest state of Colorado. Even though no-holds-barred recreational use is already in full effect in Colorado, that state’s marijuana industry made $996.2 million in 2015. California, which is still functionally a medical-use only state, cleared $2.5 billion in 2015.

Furthermore, marijuana is already California’ top cash crop. And the billion-dollar buzz of full recreational use hasn’t even kicked in yet.

Related: Welcome To Legal Weed Boom Town, Where Even Former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi Is Cashing In

These are heady times for San Francisco's existing marijuana industry, a loose affiliation of medical dispensaries, cultivators, and consultants who are still tending to their existing clientele of patients with doctors' recommendations while training their eyes toward the new recreational market made possible by the passage of Proposition 64. The state measure legalizing adult recreational cannabis use won't result in related retail permits for cities until a year from now, in January 2018 at the earliest, but the rush, or pre-rush, is already on for popular cannabis businesses to build their brands, and in the wild west landscape of post pot prohibition San Francisco, even established political players are staking their claims, former Supervisor and now retired Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi among them.

With its massive new storefront in the former Mecca space just a block up Market Street in the Castro from its former, more diminutive digs, the Apothecarium is perhaps the readiest symbol for expanding pot business aspirations. There's nothing secretive, save some panes of frosted glass, about the new, larger operation, with its comfortable, high backed chairs in a waiting area and copious counter space. But others are upping their game as well: The formerly demure and perhaps a bit dumpy Bernal Heights dispensary off Mission Street called Bernal Heights Collective ran just fine for 11 years, but the Chronicle noted last week that it's now fully upgraded itself to become "Harvest Off Mission," a new venture with a private, members-only lounge, chandeliers (not unlike Apothecarium's), and floor-to ceiling glass. As with the Apothecarium, far from hiding — behind bars and bulletproof glass as it used to — the new business announces itself proudly to would be-be customers. If Bernal Heights Collective was a speakeasy, Havest Off Mission is a an upscale cocktail lounge with top-notch mixologists.

The push is also on for SPARC, whose SoMa location on Mission Street opened in 2010 with aesthetic comparisons to an Apple Store. SPARC, which stands for San Francisco Patient And Resource Center, grew out of several small medical collectives in 2001, but it's doubled down with a new, second brick-and-mortar location in the Lower Haight. That's poised for potentially booming business as the only medical pot shop on a street long associated with the drug's use.

But opening the business was a tooth-and-nail fight: It was a deeply contentious venture on its Haight Street block despite replacing an existing dispensary space, and it finally won approval for a remodel in August after much back-and-forth. "When we first came in in September of 2015, we did everything we could do to reach out to the neighborhood organizations and merchants," SPARC Public Affairs Manager Joel Freston told SFist, "and at first we ran into a lot of pushback, fear, anxiety, and concern about whether a dispensary was going to increase crime, or what really that would mean for everybody on the block." It wasn't until the end of November, 2016, more than a year after securing the space, that SPARC opened to its doors to customers.

That persistent effort to open despite vociferous opposition says something about the importance of jockeying for a place in the coming new order of the pot world. As Freston explains, a lot of businesses will parley their success in medical marijuana into recreational marijuana. Whether SPARC will change the meaning of the "P" in its name from "Patient" to "People who want to get stoned, whoever they may be" isn't something he can say, but that's not being cagey, Freston claims. "A lot of dispensaries are going to try [to go recreational], and a lot are going to see what the city and county put forth. It's just like any other business, they'll all ask and see if it's worth it."

As the Examiner put it in a recent article about task forces concocting local policy on recreational pot, the situation is still "hazy." As Terrence Alan, the chair of the San Francisco State Cannabis Legalization Task Force, told the Examiner, "All those conversations on the retail side are really sensitive... I can’t predict what’s going to happen in the thousand neighborhoods that we have. I can imagine that San Francisco will encourage neighborhoods to try and figure out a way to do this.” Alan says he expects pot sales to double or triple, but that permitting retail will be tricky. Until they know more, existing businesses like SPARC will hold the ground they've already fought for, and then reinvent themselves from there

Speaking of reinvention, one public figure all but run out of town has come riding back in on a new high horse. Ross Mirkarimi wrote to SFist to fill us in on his work after losing his post as Sheriff to Vicki Hennessy in 2015. Now, he's in the consultancy business, in part assisting cannabis industry players and, relatedly, advocating for criminal justice reform. His clients include BASA, or Bay Area Safe Alternatives, a dispensary located off Divisadero .

"As you may recall, I was the only sheriff out of the 58 counties to support cannabis legalization," Mirkarimi wrote, "and in 2005, I was the first Supervisor in California to author a regulatory framework for medical cannabis dispensaries — I received the 'Hero of the Year' award in 2006 from NORML (National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws). Years later, my policy-making has become a basis for my work today."

So the former Sheriff is in the drug trade now. Welcome to California 2017.

Related: SF Pot Task Force Recommends 1% Tax, Legal Pot Smoking Lounges, And More

Pot smoking lounges for those 21 and over? Weed smoking areas or tents at permitted events? Those are some of the items on the to-do list created by San Francisco’s Cannabis Legalization Task Force, the Chronicle reports, and that group's mandate just got real with the passage of Prop 64.

The task force, which was selected last December, has been mulling the likely possibility of legalization since then, and these are their conclusions so far. The city should pass a one percent excise tax on marijuana sales, and in general it should move swiftly. “We’re saying, ‘This is what we think you need to do first, second and third, and this is how you need to do it,’” task force Chairman Terrance Alan, who also chairs the SF Late Night Coalition, told the Chron.

The task force would also like to see fast permitting for recreational pot shops, however, those won't be arrive until legal recreational sales kick in after January 1, 2018, according to the language of the successful proposition. Further, the task force wants to work with schools to address how marijuana use is taught and understood — and sometimes punished.

Mayor Lee, naturally, may have ideas of his own. "I want our city to work immediately to pass the best laws and regulations we can,” the Chronicle quotes him. And with real estate so tight in San Francisco, Lee doesn't want to see big buildings become grow ops, encouraging the city to bar growers from “entering existing industrial buildings until the full impact of this emerging industry is better understood.” That's a front on which the pot task force agrees. San Francisco is likelier to become a hub for testing, marijuana technologies, and other businesses, rather than larger scale grows or farms.

As there are many in San Francisco with past marijuana crime convictions, Lee indicated that Supervisor Malia Cohen was "interested in crafting legislation to address the social justice component of decriminalization,” perhaps a sign that the city would make efforts like those in Oakland, which include setting aside pot business licenses for those who have been jailed or arrested for marijuana crimes. But Oakland's measures, it should be said, are hitting some bumps and are being criticized by industry leaders. At least we in SF aren't moving in the direction of San Jose: That city preempted recreational pot legalization entirely by banning legal sales altogether ahead of the state vote.

Previously: Marijuana Totally Legal In California, Dudes; Prop 64 Passes

San Jose is getting out in front of California Proposition 64, which, if passed, would legalize recreational marijuana in the Golden State. Recalling the headache of medical marijuana legalization two decades ago —  "At one point we had over 100 marijuana dispensaries," ABC 7 quotes Vice Mayor Rose Herrera as saying, and she characterized the scene as once being the "Wild West" — local lawmakers have moved to prohibit recreational marijuana in San Jose. City Council members voted unanimously yesterday to adopt an urgency ordinance, Bay City News reports, a maneuver that would put the brakes on recreational pot in the city, which advocates say will allow time to consider legalization on a local timeframe after consulting with community groups and holding public hearings. "State [law] would allow any resident to grow marijuana in their backyard," San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said according to ABC 7, "but not everyone wants to live next door to the odor of marijuana growing in the backyard." Such literal NIMBYism is so rare that Liccardo's statement is sort of refreshing!

While San Jose's urgency ordinance would halt sales of recreational pot, as well as cultivation, manufacture, and distribution of non-medical marijuana products in the event of legalization, it wouldn't and couldn't criminalize recreational pot use if Prop 64 passes. That measure calls to allow 28.5 grams of recreational use marijuana per person over the age of 21, also providing for 4 to 8 grams of concentrated cannabis products per person and six living pot plants. The proposition allows cities to prohibit or otherwise regulate outdoor cultivation of pot plants but not to regulate indoor cultivation. Prop 64 would also create a state Marijuana Tax Fund, 60 percent of which would go to youth substance abuse prevention and treatment. Another 20 percent would go to law enforcement, and another 20 percent would be distributed to environmental groups charged with marijuana related cleanup and enforcement. A state program to allow recreational marijuana businesses to begin selling pot, no medical card needed, would begin issuing permits in 2018.

Meanwhile the Chronicle writes that Oakland is scrambling to get its house in order regarding pot laws: The city council was scheduled to discuss changes to controversial marijuana business permitting decisions made in May, but a vote planned for last night was postponed until November 14. “The thing that’s sending shock waves is the incredible instability and insecurity being caused by the uncertainty and delays in the city’s process,” said the consultant Jason Overman, a former aide to Rebecca Kaplan who is a consultant to pot-based businesses.

Several council members who had originally approved of May's measures have withdrawn their support and expressed a wish to revisit the legislation. "The amendments introduced in May 2016, and ultimately adopted by the council, were brokered at the last moment without community outreach,” three members of the council wrote in a late September memo. Those, in particular, involved social restitution measures like setting aside half of the city's permits for marijuana businesses to give them to people who were jailed on marijuana convictions in Oakland over the past decade or to those who have live in an area of East Oakland that had particularly high arrest rates for marijuana crimes in 2013. Such measures are aimed to acknowledge the disproportionate effect that the so-called war on drugs had on communities of color, but some lawyers and cannabis business insiders say the criteria are too specific and could damage the local industry.

Related: Puff, Puff, Vote: Recreational Marijuana Will Be On California's November Ballot

Possessing a medical marijuana card may allow you to buy, posses, and consume marijuana in one of 25 states (plus DC!), but as CBS 5 reports, it also comes with some limitations: Namely, you can't buy guns.

So ruled the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today, upholding a previous ruling banning a Nevada woman from buying a gun in 2011 after she had obtained a medical marijuana card. The ruling only applies to states in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction, but unfortunately for those wishing to treat their ailments while exercising their Second Amendment rights, that's still a lot of states.

As the federal government considers weed an illegal drug, the court found it could ban users of said illegal drug from buying guns. But what if the person no longer smokes weed, but still has a card? Doesn't matter: According to Consumerist the court ruled that it is reasonable to assume a card holder uses the drug, and thus the ban is lawful regardless of actual use.

So, if residents of California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Alaska, or Hawaii want to blaze up while owning guns, they're going to have to do it without a medical marijuana card. Or with an illegally obtained firearm.

Hey, perhaps they can just buy one on Facebook? Despite the company's ban, we hear it's still pretty easy to do.

Related: San Francisco's Last Gun Store To Become Pot Dispensary Because Of Course

On any given Golden Gate Park Saturday morning, you’ll find people already out enjoying some marijuana, as well as people already out for their morning jog. There is never much Venn diagram overlap between these two groups. But there was again this past weekend, as a thousand marijuana enthusiasts who also dabble in exercise rolled up early for the third annual 420 Games. Organized by the proprietors of the upcoming cannabis-friendly gym, the 420 Games seeks to recast the lazy image of cannabis users with a footrace and series of competitive exercise events.

Most races begin with a “3-2-1” countdown, but this race started with a “4-2-0” countdown. Below we see how a thousand variously medicated cannabis athletes started off a 9:30 a.m. competitive footrace, with many breaking into an immediate casual walk.

Both the runners and the race course were altered at Saturday's 420 Games, as park officials requested a last-minute shortening of the 4.20-mile course that left the distance at just over two miles.

Image: Joe Kukura/SFist

Racers were given the option of just running the course a second time for the 4.20-mile experience. But at that point 420 Games founder Jim McIlpine announced that the beer tent would be opening an hour early, causing most runners to predictably decline the offer of running a second lap.

Yes, those are strollers carrying babies at the 420 Games, and there were several dozen kids on hand for the race and celebration afterwards. “As a dad, I’m really proud to see families and fathers and moms bringing their kids out to events like this,” McIlpine told SFist. “It’s not frowned upon to bring your child out to a beer fest or anything else. So I don’t think anyone should be ashamed to be out here and no one is.”

Women's division winner Katie Modzelewski (center left), 420 Games founder JimMcIlpine (center) and men's division winner Avery Collins (center right). Image: Joe Kukura/SFis

A $500 check from Weedmaps and a $500 credit from Eaze were the grand prizes won by Fairfield distance runner Katie Modzelewski and ultramarathoner Avery Collins. “This [race] fits my whole philosophy in that I’m sponsored by cannabis companies and I’m trying to destigmatize the stoner stereotype,” said Collins, who is in fact sponsored by Weedmaps, Roll-Uh-Bowl and Incredibles.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Marijuana motivation paid off for Jane (above), winner of third place in the women’s division. “I get in line for the race at the middle of the pack, and they announce that they’re doing a cash prize,” she told SFist. “I’m thinking, maybe I should get a little closer to the front.”

Image: Joe Kukura/SFist

There was even some diesel-powered crossfit in the form of the Power Plant Fitness Challenge. “A lot of people competed and it was really well received,” the Games’ founder McIlpine told SFist.

Image: Joe Kukura/SFist

Several cannabis booths handed out their schwag, but that kind of schwag was not allowed per park regulations. Many exhibitors got creative with that rule, like the Lagunitas Brewing Company who handed out these handsome branded roach clips.

Image: Joe Kukura/SFist

The 420 Games is more of a fun run than a competitive race, after all, and a unique get-together for Type A personalities who also like their ganja. “The power of the bong makes us all get along,” said runner Moe G. Kush, who competed wearing the fine ‘Bongjour’ shirt seen above.

After launching here in 2014, the 420 Games has expanded with events in Seattle and Los Angeles earlier this year, and the games will also be heading to Portland, Denver, and Boulder this fall.

Previously: Puff, Puff, Vote: Recreational Marijuana Will Be On California's November Ballot
Pot Smokers Getting Up Early Saturday For 4.20-Mile Footrace