First the city fast-tracked the formerly incarcerated for weed licenses; now — new rules would make Oakland part-owner.

On Tuesday night in Oakland, community members and longtime cannabis professionals will go head to head with the Oakland City Council Public Safety Committee on how the term “equity” will be defined in the city’s forthcoming permitting process for the industry.

At issue is the future of Oakland’s legal marijuana industry, and who gets to be a part of it. Council will consider changing its cannabis licensing rules to mandate the city become a 25 percent owner of certain new marijuana business.

It didn’t take long for Simone Cimiluca-Radzins to learn that breaking into the cannabis industry was a task easier said than done.

Incidentally, it was this very realization that opened the door.

Cimiluca-Radzins founded Kalogia – a LinkedIn-esque platform that connects cannabis professionals around the world – in late 2014 after she herself experienced the challenges of networking in a growing yet still stigmatized industry.

Cheryl Shuman likes to make weed purées for dessert, topped off with Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps.

"Imagine a beautiful cannabis infused chocolate soufflé with a raspberry purée on top with the gold sparkles from the Schnapps,” she told me. “It's delicious and oh so glamorous.” 

This is Shuman’s world: glitz, glam, and ganj. As the director of the Beverly Hills Cannabis Club, a high-end purveyor of luxury weed and accessories, her love for cannabis overlaps with her activism which overlaps with her pot rebranding campaign. And while we might associate weed with Ziploc baggies and hazy basements, this is more about diamond studded vape pens and Hollywood soirées. 

The shop will convert its jazz room into a dispensary.

Amoeba Music has been granted the coveted license to sell medical marijuana at its flagship store in Berkeley, CA with hopes that it will help produce a boost in revenue.

The Bay Area store had previously attempted to earn the license in October 2015, but failed. At the time, Amoeba’s co-owner David Prinz said in an interview that legal marijuana could help save the company and the music business: "We need supplemental income. That's the real truth. This helps keep us open and enables us to do some amazing shit."

For decades, small growers in Humboldt County have made a living cultivating and selling cannabis. But over the last 10 years or so, outsiders have been pouring in to the region trying to cash in on the “green rush” for commercial cannabis.

The medical marijuana industry has certainly sparked a cannabis boon, but if Californians vote for Proposition 64 and allow adults to smoke cannabis purely for recreation, it will be a game changer for the industry.

It’s not hard to find local farmers who worry that larger corporations will eventually squeeze out their smaller operations.

Voters in the state of California will get a chance to express their opinions on 17 ballot propositions come November 8. The Secretary of State’s official voter guide is 224 pages of words and charts. Who’s got time to read all that?

A California Democratic Party activist, Damian Carroll, has you covered. He has composed 17 haikus to explain simply what you are voting on.

Proposition 64, to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in the state, is among our favorites:

Legalizes pot!
Also raises some tax funds
(Perhaps a billion?)

This week's Elevate conference had all the makings of a typical startup summit: Incubator founders moderated discussions on how to raise capital; entrepreneurs sat on panels about measuring success; and expo booths were filled with eager companies showing off their goods.

But unlike your usual conference, panelists at Elevate talked about "no intoxication policies," the outdoor expo hall had a cordoned off area for attendees to "medicate" — and the legality of investing in the very industry everyone gathered to discuss is still a gray area.

California is the world's sixth largest economy, only outpaced by the US as a whole, China, Japan, Germany, and the UK. The Golden State's economic output for 2015 came in at $2.46 trillion. 

Let's be clear: We're talking about a single US state economy compared with those of entire countries. California, on that scale, is number six. 

And that's why it's such a tremendously big deal that California is on the edge of fully legalizing marijuana, just like Colorado, Washington, and Oregon before it.

Merle Haggard is bringing the good times even from the grave. A strain of marijuana that the iconic singer began developing before his death in April 2016 is set to hit the market in the coming months.

The stoner dude who refuses to put down the pipe and pick up the Pampers is an archetype that Judd Apatow has made an entire career out of mining. Internet forums and advice columns teem with queries from spouses who feel widowed by their partner’s relationship with weed.

So the announcement that Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt – and a report by TMZ that Jolie was “fed up” with Pitt’s marijuana and alcohol use – has set off a bevy of speculation that Pitt never fully left behind his 1993 role as a stoner room-mate in True Romance.