Beverly Hills Cannabis Club's Cheryl Shuman

It was bound to happen — cannabis networking events that encourage curious women to pursue a career in a growing market. Pun intended.

A marketing queen who has been running the private Beverly Hills Cannabis Club for 20 years, Cheryl Shuman is taking advantage of what she calls the “pot-com boom,” and wants to take other career-minded women along for the ride.

In February she formed the networking group Women Grow, where she inspires others to join the cannabis industry. The group met recently in West Hollywood to discuss financial opportunities such as weed photography and selling baked pot edibles.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The California Legislature is considering multiple -- and conflicting -- plans to impose the first major statewide restrictions on medical marijuana dispensaries and growers.

The debate over the billion-dollar industry now regulated largely by local government and has pitted cities and law enforcement agencies against marijuana growers and sellers.

Nearly 20 years after voters approved the medical use of marijuana in California, the state’s cannabis trade is a wild west of legitimate enterprises, outlaws and erratic enforcement, caused in large part by a patchwork of inconsistent laws covering the $2bn-a-year industry.

Legislators are seeking to bring law and order to the business. Three bills – two in the state assembly and one in the senate – are competing to create a framework that would codify how medical marijuana is grown and sold in California, including whether local municipalities or the state itself would have ultimate control and what environmental and health measures should be addressed.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTVU) -- Nine years after medical marijuana became legal in California, the state lawmakers on April 30th voted on a bill that would give medical cannabis users the same right to get an organ transplant as anyone else. 

It would remove what some call prejudice against medical marijuana that already led some users to die because hospitals removed them from the transplant lists. 

That is what happened to 56-year-old Richard Hawthorne. He had viral hepatitis and like four thousand people in the Bay Area, desperately needs a liver transplant.

Just playing with his granddaughter exhausts him. 

“Depression is always here. I am tired of not being able to go out and do anything. I am pretty much confined to the house” Hawthorne said.

Cannabis Landscape Overview

What an interesting and exciting time for cannabis this is. With four states and D.C. legalizing cannabis for adult use and dozens of states working to implement medical cannabis programs, cannabis is becoming more widely accepted in our society. Every day new opportunities arise and new challenges are faced. As cannabis returns to the mainstream of society there are both external and internal forces at work to consider.

The early 1990s already feel like a lifetime ago, but that’s when vaporizers first started to hit the market alongside car phones, Sega Genesis, and the first Internet browser. And much like mobile phones, vaporizer design has evolved over the past two decades, getting increasingly smaller, smarter, and more powerful. Let’s take a look at how advanced technology has changed the cannabis vaping experience and what cannabis vaporization will look like in the not-too-distant future.

The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board has issued a draft of a marijuana cultivation waiver that would allow growers to come into compliance with state water regulations, regardless of the legality of marijuana under state or federal law.

The proposed regulations containing provisions for a waiver is in a 30 day public comment period. If the proposal is finalized as drafted, sometime this year all private property growers, with more than six plants, must apply for this waiver if their operation could impact water quality. This process provides a pathway into compliance for growers in an otherwise totally unregulated industry.

If California voters approve recreational marijuana for adults at the November 2016 ballot, Scott Wiener wants San Francisco to be ready.

The supervisor is expected to introduce legislation Tuesday to create a task force charged with figuring out how to best allow for recreational marijuana use in San Francisco. The task force will comprise officials from city government and the school district, along with neighborhood activists and medical cannabis industry players.

“Whatever one’s views on cannabis ... it looks like full legalization is going to the ballot,” Wiener told The San Francisco Examiner on Monday. “We have to be prepared.”

If California legalizes cannabis for adults in 2016, what will become of San Francisco’s world-class medical dispensaries? How about the unlicensed Golden Gate Park gathering on April 20th? What should local recreational taxes be? How should San Francisco handle cannabis tourism? Gourmet canna-dining? Tastings? Conferences? Festivals?

The City faces all these questions and more in the near future. On Tuesday, a group that includes SF Supervisor Scott Wiener, former Entertainment Commissioner Terrance Alan, now co-founder of the state’s CA Cannabis Voice and others will propose to the city’s Board of Supervisors the creation of a 19-member “Cannabis State Legalization Task Force”.

SAN FRANCISCO - Lawyers and pot dealers have long intersected in criminal court, but as marijuana goes mainstream, attorneys have been working to keep sellers and growers legit.

Marijuana divisions are popping up at law firms to advise pot shops on where they can locate, what their websites can say and how to vet new clients.

"It's definitely something that established firms are dipping a toe into, though they are being very cautious, and rightly so," said Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who teaches a class about representing the marijuana industry.