California voters legalized recreational marijuana via a ballot initiative in November 2016, almost six years ago. Since then, the weed has evolved into something like a normal business, complete with webcasts on operating efficiently, disputes about where stores can be located and gripes about underground operators siphoning off too much of the take.
But there’s little normal about pot itself. First made semi-legal by the 1996 Proposition 15, which allowed medical marijuana use with a doctor’s “recommendation” (not a real prescription, since pharmacies never sold it), medipot operated in a kind of gray legal area for 20 years, but was nevertheless in common use.