What little popularity San Francisco Mayor Ed is able to muster up these days may be contingent on pandering to the emerging local marijuana industry, but Lee might be screwing that one up too. While the mayor has tried to trim the local industry by proposing limits on industrial marijuana grow operations, his latest pot proposal would create a city department whose actual name would be the Office of Cannabis, according to the Examiner. The director of the office would be empowered to “issue, deny, condition, suspend, or revoke cannabis-related permits in accordance with applicable laws and regulations,” and the creation of this new department will be part of a larger, omnibus City Administrator budget review up for debate at Thursday’s Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee meeting.

Lee’s suggestion of a three-person department is a replacement plan for Sup. Jeff Sheehy’s recently proposed Department of Cannabis that would have included a larger committee. But considering that San Francisco already has a Cannabis State Legalization Task Force and a separate Medical Cannabis Task Force, these possibly redundant task forces strike the marijuana industry as too many cooks in the kush kitchen.

Green Cross dispensary founder Kevin Reed did not mince words at his dissatisfaction with the plan, citing concerns with “all the shady shit that’s going to go on behind the scenes.”

“Based upon my expertise, I believe the creation of such a department is unnecessary,” Reed said in an email to the Board of Supervisors obtained by the Examiner. “It increases costs to an already costly and bureaucratic permitting process, burdens the industry, in particular, small business owners, and is poor use of city resources and taxpayer funds.”

By contrast, local marijuana entrepreneur Erich Pearson, the founder of SPARC dispensary and a member of the SF Cannabis Legalization Task Force, issued a statement saying, "As an operator of an existing medical cannabis dispensary, I applaud the Mayor's actions in developing a new adult-use cannabis department. The creation of this department will address San Franciscans' overwhelming desire for legal cannabis distribution."

Issues surrounding legalization and taxation may serve to keep much of the sticky-icky cannabis market underground, and continuing to operate as a black market. A Tribune News Service report published this weekend estimated that “29 percent of all cannabis consumers may stay in the illegal market at first to avoid the cost of new regulations.” These figures come from a University of California Agricultural Issues Center study assessing the impact of the 15 percent excise tax set to go into effect on all marijuana products when adult recreational marijuana sales become legal.

“It’s going to take some time,” California’s Bureau of Marijuana Control director Lori Ajax told the Tribune News Service. “While it’s unlikely that everyone will come into the regulated market on Day 1, we plan to continue working with stakeholders as we move forward to increase participation over time.”

The California marijuana market, of course, is set to go Skywalker Diesel when marijuana sales to anyone 21 and older become legal on January 1, 2018.

Related: 4/20 Draws 15,000 to Make Hippie Hill Go Up in Smoke

With the passage of legal recreational marijuana use in California, the full marijuanization of each aspect of our lives and culture walks further down the aisle each day. Couples who are engaged in regular, daily tokes and smoke-outs now have their own boutique strain of weed-friendly wedding planners and bridal industry vendors, many of whom rolled up to the Westfield San Francisco Centre on Sunday for an I-swear-to-god-I’m-not-making-this-up event called the Cannabis Wedding Expo. More than 50 marijuana-specific wedding vendors and exhibitors packed the Westfield’s Bespoke space to cater to couples who wish to remember their special day with bong rips and pre-rolls, though may not necessarily remember their vows.

"To-be-weds who are engaged realize that it’s a non-negotiable for them, they don’t want to budge on including cannabis in their wedding or reception," said wedding planner Ivy Summer, whose Voulez Events offers marijuana-friendly wedding packages. "They really want it to be part of their day, it’s a huge part of their lives and lifestyle."

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Every one of those dresses above is a hemp wedding dress (a silk-hemp blend, actually), designed by Janay of High Vibe Bride, who drove here from all the way from Kansas City with 14 of these hemp wedding dresses in her car. “It’s not heavy, it’s not itchy at all,” said one of the models above Brittany Janae, describing these silk-hemp wedding dresses that go anywhere from $1,500-$5,000.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

"Most wedding dresses are made unethically overseas, basically out of plastic,” said High Vibe Bride designer and owner Janay. “Our dresses are made in the U.S., made locally by seamstresses.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

You definitely want to catch the bouquets from Flowers on Flowers, who create floral wedding bouquets with actual marijuana buds in them. “We do real arrangements with real weed or fake arrangements with fake weed,” Flowers in Flowers CEO Leslie Monroy told SFist. (That’s fake weed in the dank floral crowns and earrings seen above.) “The nugs are completely fake, you can travel anywhere in the world with them.” But their ‘real nug bouquets’ feature five different strains of kind bud that have all won a High Times Cannabis Cup award.

Marijuana papel picado from Canna Reign Studios. Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

“Mother’s Day is huge for us,” Monroy said of the marijuana flower bouquet business. “We also have an ‘I’m sorry’ line. Anyone wouldn’t be upset anymore if they got those flowers.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

We did not see a full-on, marijuana-infused, three-layer wedding cake at these proceedings, though there were bakeries who create high-octane single serve macaroons, petit fours, and other edible treats. Above we see the THC-infused cotton candy of B-Edibles, who make organic, medicated cotton candy for cannabis dinner parties and private events. “I take the machine, the infused sugar, and whatever flavor the event is requiring, and I spin cotton candy onsite,” B-Edibles founder Vanessa Corrales told SFist.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

But this was a legit “canna-free” event at the hoity Westfield Mall, so the cotton candy was not medicated and the phat nugs were for display purposes only. The strict ban on consumption was a Westfield requirement, but surely helped legitimize the event. “One of the prouder moments of today for me has been for Bespoke and the Westfield Mall to allow us to have outward-facing signs throughout the mall for a cannabis event,” Cannabis Wedding Expo founder Philip Wolf told SFist. But the quarter-ounce of prevention helped ensure the marijuana-themed wedding event was made of honor.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Related: 4/20 Draws 15,000 to Make Hippie Hill Go Up in Smoke

Hippie Hill lived up to its name like never before Thursday, as the largest-ever iteration of the annual 4/20 bacchanalia in Golden Gate Park pulled an estimated crowd of 15,000 at the party’s peak (last year’s 4/20 peaked at 12,000). The objective was to get as high as possible, as Hippie Hill and Sharon Meadow were transformed into a giant outdoor weed-dispensary-slash-Grateful Dead-parking-lot scene. While this year’s officially sponsored 4/20 event was city-permitted for the first time with porta-potties, chain link fences, and security checks at the gates, attendees were still allowed a complete marijuana free-for-all once inside and created fantastic messes of traffic and congestion after the smoke-out was over.

That is pure marijuana smoke blanketing the crowd in the video above, shot precisely at 4:20 p.m. on 4/20 and creating a remarkable cannabis cloud.

This year’s new restrictions banning unpermitted vendors, glass, tents, canopies, and tables were all completely ignored. Anyone who could get their items past security (how did he get this past security?) could get away with indulging, selling weed, or drinking alcohol. You could not walk two steps without hearing a vendor shouting “Edibles!”, “Ice cold Corona!” or “$2 dabs!”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

The only regulation that did appear to be successfully enforced was a ban on minors, though there were plenty of people there young looking enough that I think I would go to jail if I had sex with them.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

The vending scene was particularly brazen on the sidewalk between the hill and the meadow. As you can see from this makeshift vending booth, single-bud zip bags, huge sacks of weed, and all manner of edibles were freely sold without permits or consequences.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

“We understand and we anticipated that people were going to sneak things in,” SFPD’s Park Station Captain John Sanford told reporters at a press conference at the event. “This type of event where you draw ten to fifteen thousand people, it’s just way too many people to try to enforce something like that. I made the command decision that we were not going to enforce, just as long as it did not impact the public safety.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

“I saw quite a bit of openly selling drugs!” KRON 4’s Maureen Kelly pointed out.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

“We’re not ignoring any rules, we’re trying to manage the crowd, the traffic, the attendees to make sure it’s a safe place,” SFPD public information officer Robert Rueca responded. “The event seems to appear as how we planned. There’s a perimeter set up. Everyone’s staying within the perimeter. At this time, everyone’s behaving.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

The ban on smoking in Golden Gate Park was quite obviously not enforced. “We can’t go and cite potentially thousands of people given the resources we have,” Rueca said. “Our biggest priority is nothing violent occurs.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Not all vendors were allowed in. The security checks denied entry to anyone with wheeled contraptions, clothing racks, or large barbecue grills, creating a sort of exiled vendor scene at the eastern entrance of the park. “We were anticipating and prepared for spillover from the event,” said SF Rec and Parks director of public policy and affairs Sarah Madland. “The primary location we’ve seen that is at the Haight Street entrance to Golden Gate Park. With the help of the San Francisco Police Department, that is under control.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

One ingenious gang of vendors was hauling in and selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts by the hundreds to the munchie-susceptible masses. These vendors chose not to be identified, and told SFist they were “raising money for school”. High school, ammirite?

Someone got a pretty sweet drone video of Hippie Hill right at 4:20 p.m. If anyone can find this video online or knows anything about the drone operator, we'd sure love to hear about it in the comments! Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

The large crowds, lack of regrettable incident, and easy-money vending opportunities must have the new 4/20 sponsors (High Times, Cookies, and a gaggle of other marijuana barons) wondering if they’ve created a new San Francisco tourism holiday the caliber of Folsom Street Fair or SF Pride. But there is certainly a risk that 4/20’s unchecked sketchy elements might lead the event to a demise like Pink Saturday or Halloween in the Castro. And for anyone trying to commute at rush hour Thursday night in Richmond or Sunset, this is now officially more like Bay to Breakers or Outside Lands where you’d rather just make plans to leave town.

Related: This Is What Hippie Hill Looks Like Right Now

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

So much for keeping things the same. The new owners of the Castro's historic Cafe Flore hope to eventually shake things up at the indoor-outdoor restaurant — partially by turning the corner spot into the city's first cannabis café. And, as one of the owners also happens to be the chairman of San Francisco's Cannabis State Legalization Task Force, they might be able to pull it off. Maybe.

The Bay Area Reporter spoke with the new owners, who shared their vision of weed-infused food and drink served alongside tapas and cocktails. "Cannabis is definitely part of our long-term vision," Terrance Alan, of the aforementioned Task Force, told the paper.

Alan and his business partner, Aaron Silverman, aim to take advantage of the recently approved Task Force recommendations that suggest the city should create new licenses to allow for "the diverse businesses within the adult-use cannabis industry, such as baking or cooking licenses, [and] consumption lounges." And while he concedes that Cafe Flore — to be renamed Flore — won't start selling marijuana food for at least a few years, pending changes in existing law, he sees the Castro corner as the perfect spot for the city's first pot lounge. "The Castro is the neighborhood where medical marijuana got started in this city," he told the paper.

However, Alan acknowledges one sticky-icky point that may hinder his plans: Proposition 64, which legalized recreational marijuana in California, explicitly prohibits businesses from selling both pot and alcohol. Cafe Flore has a liquor license, which they likely do not want to give up. Despite this, Alan believes that the law could be amended "in time" to allow for businesses like his to sell both — though right now that's pure hopes and dreams.

In the meantime, he and Silverman intend to make some immediate changes that won't run afoul of the law. The menu is going to be revamped to focus on shared plates, and a cocktail consultant is being hired to rework the drink menu. The seating will also likely be changed, and the patio is to be made over to be more all-weather.

Silverman and Alan officially take charge of the restaurant today, and a grand reopening is planned for around Valentine's Day.

Previously: Historic Castro Cafe Flore Sold To LGBT Buyers Who Plan To Keep It The Same

In the wake of the passage of Prop 64 last week, Vice News has done a piece titled "A Tale of Two Growers," contrasting the fates of Steve DeAngelo, the hugely successful founder of Oakland-based medical marijuana operation Harborside Health Center, and an anonymous black market grower with an illegal operation in the woods in the Sierra foothills, who appears on camera disguised.

Because Prop 64 prohibits the granting of recreational growing or sale licenses to people with marijuana-related felony convictions in other states, the grower who goes by the name Trip says he doesn't think he'll ever be able to go legal in California. And while the fates of medical growers statewide look to be only improving as they seize opportunities to shift into the enormous recreational market, Trip has seen two of his three marijuana grows raided and shut down this year, and is watching his profits dwindling.

DeAngelo, however, says that Prop 64 is "the culmination of my life's work." Harborside, with its three existing medical dispensaries and 200 employees, is looking at revenues perhaps in the hundreds of millions in the coming years. At last count, Harborside made $39 million, and DeAngelo says, "When we next sit down maybe we'll have 500 employees with well paying jobs and great benefits."

It's estimated that the recreational marijuana market in California is worth $7 billion.

Trip foresees "Big Cannabis," i.e. corporate interests from Big Agriculture and Big Tobacco, coming in to eventually monopolize this market — which could potentially be a detriment to established businesses like Harborside.

But marijuana remains illegal at the federal level and even medical sellers aren't totally in the clear as a result. Only six months ago Harborside still had a federal lawsuit hanging over it, and DeAngelo is still doing battle with the IRS over his ostensibly legal business.

Although, maybe after everything we've learned about eating locally when it comes to produce, people will still tend to go for local weed and patronize their local growers here in California over companies owned by Big Tobacco. Time will tell.

The Vice segment is airing on their HBO show Vice New Tonight, tonight.

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

Voters heading to the polls tomorrow face a lengthy ballot and a host of pressing choices on any number of important issues. Honestly, it's enough to stress out even the most mellow of us, which is perhaps why many in California have been keeping a close eye on Proposition 64 — the measure that would legalize recreational marijuana across the Golden State. With the Chronicle reporting that Prop 64 is likely to pass, many residents across the state are asking the same question: How soon, exactly, can we all legally light up and smoke the memory of the horrible 2016 campaign into a distant fog of a memory?

The answer, as we discussed over the weekend, is "almost immediately." SF Weekly reports that, in general, state propositions take effect right after the election. So as long as it's not a close vote — a result that could potentially delay a certification from the secretary of state (which is required for the results to become official) — residents of California (21 years or older!) will be legally allowed to posses up to an ounce of marijuana and smoke pot for recreational purposes starting at midnight on November 9. For those of you who don't have too early of a bed time, that translates to late tomorrow night.

Now, a few important notes. First, and as NORML informs us, recreational sales will have to wait until after January 1, 2018. Second, if the measure passes you are still technically not allowed to smoke pot in a public place — so hold off on those plans to spark something major in front of your local police station.

And if any of you are on the job hunt, take note of this major buzzkill courtesy of the Chronicle: Potential employers can still decline to hire you if you fail a drug test, and your current employer will still be able to fire you for testing positive for THC. Just because it's legal, doesn't mean employers want to employ stoners, and that's their prerogative.

Bummer, dude.

Related: Here's What You Need To Know Before Voting For The Dozens Of State And Local Propositions

In a tale straight out of a Northern California nightmare, two women stand accused of kidnapping four brothers and forcing them to work as slaves on a marijuana farm near the Sierra mountain town of West Point. The Associated Press reports that two of the four men had been held since February of this year, and that the suspects allegedly planned to kill them when the harvest was finished.

According to the women pictured above, have been charged with "human trafficking, kidnapping, battery with serious bodily injury, terrorist threats, and drug charges."

Another AP report tells us how this horrific story all went down. Apparently two of the brothers were lured to the farm with promises of day labor gardening work, but they were allegedly made to work on a marijuana farm and beaten and repeatedly threatened. One of the women, Guadalupe Sierra Arellano, then allegedly found out where the men's two brothers lived, and tricked them into coming to the farm — police say they were also then held against their will and forced to work.

Armed guards are reported to have stood watch over the men, and they were allegedly forced to sleep in a shack and repeatedly beaten.

The Pine Tree reports that in the days before their escape, they heard a male captor asking one of the female captors if he could kill the men. She allegedly told him to wait until the harvest was over. The male captor, who remains on the loose, allegedly tried to stab one of the men anyway.

The four brothers managed to escape on July 27 to a neighbor's home and notify the police. They all showed signs of being beaten — one so badly that he needed to be taken to a trauma center. The local police, SWAT, Bureau of Land Management, FBI, the county sheriff, and Angels Police Department K9s all served a search warrant on the farm the next day and found 23,000 marijuana plants and a handgun.

“We’ve seen an increase in violence, theft and greed related to marijuana trafficking, and this appears to be an organized, violent group,” Calaveras County Sheriff’s Captain Jim Macedo told the AP.

Neither woman has entered a plea, and investigators are looking into whether or not they have ties to Mexican cartels.

Related: Ninth Circuit Rules Medical Marijuana Card Holders Can't Buy Guns

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

Porta-potties always present a surprise of some kind, usually disgusting and terrible ones. But weirdly, in Rogue River, Oregon, the surprise was a shitton of pot plants. The AP reports that local police officers seized the portable can filled with cannabis after a man came across it in a park. It's the largest seizure their department has ever made.

Posting the find to Facebook, the department wrote that "A man walking his dog through Anna Classick Park this morning just before 9am, stopped to use the Porta-Potty next to the tennis courts... and found this. Got marijuana? We Do!" Helpful citizens are already chiming in, noting that the weed doesn't look particularly mature and could have been discarded, with one good Samaritan writing that she specializes "in weed eradication and i can help make it disappear as a service to the community."

Rogue River PD via Facebook

My theory? This was a grow gone bad, and in discarding some of the plants, the growers chose a porta-potty because it could mask the smell, at least for a moment?

Or maybe somebody just stowed them there for safe keeping and was just on his way to pick them up?

Perhaps it's just a word to the wise: Leave no remote Porta-Potty unopened.

Congrats, everyone, we did it. Residents of San Francisco smoke more weed than those of any other city in the country. According to data released today by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and subsequently picked up by the Washington Post, San Franciscans over the age of 12 are blazing harder than anyone else in these great United States.

But just how hard? "Over 15 percent of San Francisco residents age 12 and over use marijuana monthly or more, the highest rate in the country," the Post tells us. "By contrast, the lowest use rates are in the far south of Texas, where fewer than 4 percent use monthly."

Nice. We even beat Colorado.

The data is from the years 2012 to 2014, and represents responses from roughly 204,000 individuals. The report actually dives into the San Francisco/Oakland area specifically, and reveals some interesting facts. "In the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont MSA, an annual average of 782,000 persons aged 12 or older used any illicit drug in the past year," the report explains. "This represents 21.9 percent of the MSA population, which is higher than the rates for the State of California (16.8 percent) and the Nation as a whole (14.7 percent) (Figure 1). The rate of marijuana use in the past year was 17.0 percent, which was also higher than the rates in California and the Nation."

So go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back — you earned it, after all. Just remember to set that bubbler down first.

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

Californians will once again have the chance to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The Sacramento Bee reports that the Secretary of State’s Office yesterday verified that supporters had turned in the required amount of signatures to place the measure on this November's ballot. If approved, the measure making it legal for adults to buy, smoke, and grow recreational marijuana in the country's most populated state will likely have impacts felt across the country.

Jason Kinney, a spokesman for California’s Adult Use of Marijuana Act, put it succinctly in a statement. “Today marks a fresh start for California, as we prepare to replace the costly, harmful and ineffective system of prohibition with a safe, legal and responsible adult-use marijuana system that gets it right and completely pays for itself.”

Under the law, KRON 4 reports that individuals 21 years of age or older could grow up to six plants and also buy an ounce of weed at a time. People would still be prohibited from smoking pot in places where cigarettes are banned — so, sorry, no blazing at the local art-house theater.

Californians last had a chance to vote to make recreational pot legal in 2010. That measure was, of course, defeated. Well, thanks to the backing of Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom (who promises he doesn't smoke himself) and rich-person Sean Parker, we all get another shot at it.

A host of different organizations came out in favor of the new measure, including, perhaps surprisingly, the California Medical Association. "[We] believe that the most effective way to protect the public health is to tightly control, track and regulate marijuana and to comprehensively research and educate the public on its health impacts, not through ineffective prohibition," the group announced in a press statement.

If passed, growers and dispensaries will likely be regulated in a manner akin to breweries. Puff, puff, regulate. Oh, and don't forget to vote.

Related: Here's Your Opportunity To Become The State's Official Weed Czar