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California could become sanctuary state for marijuana

April 3, 2017

A bill introduced in the California Legislature calls for applying sanctuary city rules to federal marijuana enforcement efforts. [Huffington Post]

Assembly Bill 1578 would bar state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal crackdowns on legal marijuana growers and sellers in California. The bill is modeled after sanctuary city rules that shield illegal immigrants from federal agents.

If adopted, AB 1578 would prohibit state and local agencies, unless served a court order order, from using money, facilities or personnel to help federal agents investigate, detain, report or arrest any marijuana activity that is allowable under California law. The bill would pertain to commercial and noncommercial cannabis activity, as well as medical marijuana.

Additionally, the bill would bar state and local officers from transferring an individual to federal authorities for the purpose of marijuana enforcement. Likewise, state and local officials would be barred from responding to requests by federal agents for the personal information belonging to anyone who has been issued state licenses for a cannabis operation.

Democratic Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, the lead sponsor of the bill, said the legislation would protect “one of the greatest businesses” in California amid fears of a crackdown by the Trump administration.

Marijuana currently remains illegal under federal law, and the Trump administration has given mixed signals as to its plans on enforcement. White House press secretary Sean Spicer has warned of greater enforcement on recreational pot use, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said, “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

However, last month Sessions suggested he might not go to war over pot and that the Obama administration issued valid guidance that paved the way for states to legalize cannabis. Nonetheless, the Drug Enforcement Agency recently requested information from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office about marijuana cases in the state.

California law enforcement officials have reacted angrily to the proposal to create a sanctuary state for pot.

Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, the president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, told the Los Angeles Times the bill is quite offensive and that legislators “want to direct law enforcement how they want us to work.”


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“Nearer my god to thee” legend has it that was the last song played by the orchestra on the deck of the titanic.


Forget that half the state is on welfare, can’t even read a stop sign, corruption is rampant, and a third of the adults can’t even speak English. none of these things matter, instead lets figure out a way to usurp the supremacy clause. Complete Idiots.


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Me and Martha took a honeymoon

To California ‘neath the silvery moon

She was eighteen and I was twenty-two

Now we’re just a-doin’ what the young folks do


We’re goin’ to Californi\a

To get that Humbolt gold

Ain’t nothin’ it can’t fix (Can’t fix)

Old dogs can learn new tricks (New tricks)

When the streets are lined with bricks

Of Humbolt gold


We ’bout decided against the whole thing

But then we thought that we ought to swing

Thinkin’ that California held the keys

To cure these cotton-pickin’ sniffles and sneeze


We’re goin’ to California

To get that Humbolt gold

Ain’t nothin’ it can’t fix (Can’t fix)

Old dogs can learn new tricks (New tricks)

When the streets are lined with bricks

Of Humbolt gold


Zig zag polly wolly diddum woddum doo

Hey diddle diddle, twenty-three-skiddo

Me and Martha sure had fun

Humbolt gold for everyone


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I guess the poster’s complaining about this article only believe in State’s Right’s when it relates to insurance industry crossing boundaries, bathroom regulations or marriage laws,but not so much here with marijuana. You want the Feds to protect you from it. Funny how that works.


I bet you really do believe in State’s Right’s though. ……..The problem is it appears you guys picked the wrong state to live in.


BTW–Idaho has lot’s of room for you and is a bastion for State’s Rights.. It is beautiful and you can hunt from the cab of your pickup truck legally. ….which should be really enticing.


They don’t like; immigrants, taxes, the right to choose, or regulations of any kind and they’ll throw you in jail for years for 2 grams of weed.


….now if it only had an economy like the over taxed and over regulated California does…


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No MrYan. I did not pick the wrong state to live. I am a third generation Californian. Born here many decades ago when California was a different type of State. The State has changed around me, and not for the good. California will continue to decline and her best days are behind her.


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Problem is, Web, it just ain’t so. You yearn for the bad old days, but we keep moving forward. That “decline” is exhibited by CA having the strongest state economy in the nation, by it’s being the 6th largest nation state economy in the world. All the taxed-out-of-CA rhetoric is nonsense. The state thrives. And its people progress. If you don’t like it here anymore, you might want to try West Virginia or Mississippi for a while and get some perspective. That might help you appreciate what you have a bit more.


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While you are right, in general, about California’s economy, you forget that a lot of people (long-time residents) have suffered while the tech industry experiences an economic boom. Housing prices alone have driven a lot of people into poverty or migration. I expect that I will join the migrants when I retire as I can’t afford to live here on a fixed retirement income as much as I would like to.


If you want a (mostly) united California, you need to minimize the number of people who are negatively affected by “progress.” (This was one of the two biggest mistakes that Clinton and the DNC made in the past election.)


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I think the tide is turning and California is reverting back to the Old West. The laws for the most part will be ignored and the victims will seek revenge themselves and California will be like Chicago, Wild West shootouts. And at the same time the government elite will be basking in style spending all of the fees that they are anticipating by giving more pay raises and benefits, creating czars to oversee the corruption while the rest of us will suffer the consequence. As we see what appears to be a reversal of enforcing laws we might just see a reversal of the Oregon trail where Californians will mount up in their SUV’s and hightail it out of California.


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You mean DC, not CA, right when you talk of “government elite will be basking in style spending all of the fees that they are anticipating by giving more pay raises and benefits, creating czars to oversee the corruption while the rest of us will suffer the consequence?” Sounds like Trumpism, not Brownism.


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First it was California wants it’s own Immigration laws in lieu of Federal jurisdiction. Now it is California wants it’s own Drug laws. Ladies & Gentlemen, next will be that California will say that the 2nd Amendment does not apply to California and they will outlaw private gun ownership.


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California is fast approaching the shameful holder of the moniker “The sanctuary lawless state”


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Well, it sure as hell is not a sanctuary state from taxes. Just wait till the dem led legislators approve the taxes they intend to attach to every gram of smoke…


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Or the taxes they have to raise to make up for the lost federal funds resulting from this lawlessness.


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Jorge Estrada does that include alcoholic beverages? For instance, the wine industry which which has taken over California just like a drug cartel.


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If you do not know, I said drugs of any type which includes alcohol. No drug should be singled out as a funding surge to better education, etc. How about looking at it this way, if we legalize voluntary sedation then include an equal offset to lessen welfare for those who choose to be sedated.


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Will California be just like the cartel’s who take good care of their towns in Mexico. In Mexico they don’t need no stinking badges, here we just mitigate, litigate, legislate and then it’s ok. Personally, I disagree with our funding needs being justified through the sale of recreational drugs of any type.


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