LOCAL NEWS

local news CALIFORNIA

Discrimination Lawsuit Hits SoCal Cultivators Jungle Boys

The famed SoCal pheno hunters and cultivators known as Jungle Boys are making headlines for all the wrong reasons. In April, two women filed suit against L.A.’s Toluca Lake Collective – an entity closely associated with the award-winning strains released under the Jungle Boys brand – alleging, per a WeedWeek exclusive, “sex discrimination, underpayment and other labor violations.” Then, in August, three additional plaintiffs filed a separate suit alleging similar misconduct. Moving forward, the five women plan to consolidate their cases into a class action suit. Employed by Jungle Boys as budtenders (or, as they were called internally, “Jungle Girls”), the plaintiffs allege they were “denied equal pay, promotions and assignments” because of their gender. They additionally allege Jungle Boys failed to pay overtime wages, withheld tips, and committed other labor violations affecting workers of all genders. Defendant Lindsay Wooten, for instance, alleges that despite her qualifications (she holds a degree in horticulture), she was repeatedly denied the opportunity to become a cultivator. Wooten also claims management told employees they were “not allowed to become pregnant.” The suit from the latter three plaintiffs was filed in the Superior Court of California on August 15 and remains ongoing.

Though it won’t mark the first time the residents have enjoyed psychedelics within city limits, a new resolution adopted unanimously by local lawmakers has set the stage for San Francisco to become the latest locality to decriminalize psychedelics. Sponsored by SF Supervisors Dean Preston and Hilary Ronen, the resolution will not immediately set changes to the city’s criminal justice policy in motion. Rather, it adopts a language of “urging” San Francisco law enforcement agencies to make investigations and arrests related to adult use of entheogenic plants “amongst the lowest priority.” The resolution, which was supported by the local chapter of national organization Decriminalize Nature, also encourages state and federal law enforcement agents to de-prioritize these offenses. The victory stands in contrast to the failure of Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 519, which sought to decriminalize possession and use of limited amounts of specific psychedelic compounds. Though SB 519 was unable to survive the Assembly Appropriations Committee intact in August, perhaps this success in San Francisco will bring renewed interest to the fight.

San Francisco Approves Resolution to Decriminalize Psychedelics

A June 8 photo from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shows marijuana plants inside an illegal grow operation in the Antelope Valley.

L.A. Times Exposes Alarming Scale of State’s Illegal Cannabis Grows

In a stunning feat of reporting, Paige St. John of the L.A. Times has uncovered just

how massive the problem of illegal Cannabis grows in California remains. Citing the state’s own inability to convincingly quantify the problem, the paper took on the issue internally by obtaining satellite imagery from 2021 encompassing “nearly 3,000 square miles of land” across six counties: Siskiyou, Trinity, Mendocino, Shasta, Butte and San Bernardino. Utilizing footage culled from a mix of public and private sources, the L.A. Times found that the area they’d surveyed contained 25 million square feet of illicit greenhouses, or, as they phrased it: “enough [weed] to supply the entire legal “25 MILLION California market.” To reach this conclusion, licensing maps provided SQUARE FEET by California’s Department of Cannabis Control (CDCC) were cross- OF ILLICIT referenced against likely illegal grow sites, which the paper called “easy GREENHOUSES” to spot” in satellite imagery thanks to tell-tale signs like plastic-covered hoop houses. Of the most damning findings published in the report is the revelation that, as of earlier this year, “all but 68 of the 782 Cannabis farms below Post Mountain in Trinity County lacked a state license.” As part of their reporting, the L.A. Times also detailed the CDCC’s efforts to implement a secretive surveillance system known as CannaVision.

Gov. Newsom Signs New Cannabis Bills

The law never rests when it comes to California and Cannabis regulations. The latest updates come courtesy of a flurry of weedrelated bills that landed on the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom following the end of California’s legislative session in August. On Sept. 5, Newsom signed AB 1954 and SB 988 into law. Sponsored by Asm. Bill Quirk, the former bill will prevent doctors from denying medication or treatment to registered medical marijuana patients that test positive for THC. Meanwhile, SB 988 from Sen. Ben Hueso amends an existing law regarding the right of registered medical marijuana patients to use Cannabis products at hospitals. Two days later, Newsom signed AB 2595. That bill, sponsored by Asm. Reggie Jones-Sawyer, instructs social workers to treat parental Cannabis use in the same manner as alcohol when investigating child welfare cases. As this issue went to print, Gov. Newsom signed SB 1186, ensuring Cannabis delivery services are available throughout the state to medical marijuana patients, as well as AB 2188 – aimed at employment protections for those who test positive for off-the-job Cannabis use.