California dreaming for legal pot advocates

[Geee]

Politico:

OAKLAND, Calif. — The nerve center for this year’s highly publicized movement to legalize marijuana is in a neighborhood known as Oaksterdam, where medical marijuana dispensaries — and doctors who sign permission slips to patronize them — have replaced the rundown, riot-ravaged buildings of this city’s downtown.

The nine-block area has become something of a tourist attraction for pot smokers and growers who enjoy the bong selection and hemp stores that used to be confined to European cannabis havens like Amsterdam.


A group of 20-somethings, many of them on summer break, spend their days calling voters around the state to explain the virtues of ending the 73-year marijuana prohibition from cannabis campaign headquarters. The unmistakable scent of the weed wafts from the adjacent Oaksterdam University, where more than 11,000 students have learned the art of growing and selling it.

Proposition 19, on California’s November ballot, would allow anyone older than 21 to cultivate a small amount of marijuana for personal use. Cities would be able to regulate and tax sales.