8/3/2012 1:05 PM PDT BY TMZ STAFF EXCLUSIVE Former Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri just dodged a major bullet after his 4-hour standoff with a S.W.A.T. team last year — cutting a MAJOR deal with prosecutors that will keep him out of jail. Oliveri’s lawyer Freddy Sayegh tells TMZ, “Mr. Oliveri agreed to plead to one count of […]

By Steve Elliott Hemp News It’s been 100 years since California became the first states in the U.S. to ban marijuana. Weed historian and cannabis legalization advocate Dale Gieringer says the key date is August 10, 1913, when the state Board of Pharmacy was authorized to add “loco-weed” to the state’s Poison Act. “They began launching raids,” said Gieringer, state […]

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer POSTED:   06/02/2013 05:19:49 PM PDT0 COMMENTS| UPDATED:   ABOUT A YEAR AGO Magic Ellingson, known as “Henry Hemp” promotes medical marijuana at a recent Hempcon Marijuana convention at the Convention Center in Los Angeles. (David Crane/Los Angeles Daily News) The crackdown against medical pot shops across Southern California began as soon as the state’s […]

By Christina Villacorte, Staff Writer POSTED: 12/31/69, 4:00 PM PST | UPDATED: ON 08/25/2011 T-shirts decorated with the words “I Love Pot,” bongs in every shape and color, and sexy nurses wearing garlands of fake cannabis leaves — it was all there at HempCon 2011. The event at the Los Angeles Convention Center, which runs through the weekend, is all […]

Days after LA voters approved a law that limits the number of pot dispensaries in the city, HempCon, America’s biggest medical marijuana convention, kicked off in downtown Los Angeles. The event includes exhibits from local medical marijuana dispensaries, as well presentations by attorneys and activists such as Richard Eastman, who helped start the first pot dispensary in LA in the […]

Billing itself as the world’s largest medical marijuana convention, Hempcon returns April 19-21 to San Jose with “therapeutic” tunes from Wu-Tang rapper Cappadonna, samples and a medicating 420 area. Straddling the line between a marijuana festival and an educational event, Hempcon showcases the latest in hydroponics equipment, smoking utensils and organizers even advertise samples from some of the more than […]

Hempcon To Be Held in LA This Weekend May 25, 2013  by lucy Hempcon, one of America’s biggest medical marijuana conventions, is being held this weekend in Los Angeles.  The event comes right on the heels of Los Angeles’ approval of Proposition D, which limits the number of medical marijuana collectives that can operate in the city to only 135. […]

The California medical marijuana industry is taking a beating, with an estimated 200 dispensaries and scores of related cannabis businesses closing since early May. Hundreds more could be forced to shut down in the coming months, ensuring that California will remain one of the most unpredictable, chaotic MMJ markets in the country for the foreseeable future. If you’re currently operating […]

Some 20,000 people are expected at the downtown LA event, in its third year. By Angie Crouch and Jason Kandel, NBC Los Angeles – Friday, May 24 2013 Days after LA voters approved a law that limits the number of pot dispensaries in the city, HempCon, America’s biggest medical marijuana convention, kicked off in downtown Los Angeles. The event includes […]

By Dana Bartholomew, Staff Writer POSTED: 12/31/69, 4:00 PM PST | UPDATED: ON 06/01/2013 The crackdown against medical pot shops across Southern California began as soon as the state’s highest court ruled last month that cities could enforce their dispensary bans, Police have raided a legion of medical marijuana dispensaries across the Southland, while legal threats have been issued to […]