Cannabiz author John Geluardi November 5

November 5th at 7 pm, journalist John Geluardi comes to Northtown Books.

His new book Cannabiz tells one the most important political and business stories of our generation: the transformation of a counterculture movement into a growth industry with staggering potential. Charting the rise of medical marijuana in California and 14 other states, award-winning journalist John Geluardi vividly recounts the movement’s early activism, its legal challenges and victories, and its emergence as a commercial and political force.

Tracing the history of marijuana in the United States, Cannabiz also reports on the industry’s key players, political allies and opponents, internal strife, and audacious aspirations—including a 2010 ballot initiative to legalize the adult use of marijuana in California. Along the way, Geluardi describes local efforts to regulate dispensaries, ranging from workable ordinances in some cities to bureaucratic paralysis in Los Angeles, where dispensaries came to outnumber McDonalds franchises. He also reports on efforts in our own Humboldt County to keep pot illegal—and prices high.

Adroitly profiling this unique industry, Cannabiz tells a distinctively American story—one whose colorful characters and fascinating details evoke Prohibition and the Gold Rush.

John Geluardi is a veteran Bay Area reporter. A staff writer for SF Weekly, he wrote features on crime, local and national politics, and culture. In 2008, he received three first-place awards from the San Francisco Penninsula Press Club for his stories on vice presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez, the legendary Caffe Trieste, and a series of San Francisco homicides the police falsely classified as suicides.

Praise for Cannabiz

“Cannabiz fully captures the vibrant and ever-evolving political and economic landscape of the budding medical marijuana industry. Geluardi accurately paints the City of Oakland as a leader in legitimizing the industry and as the Silicon Valley of cannabis.”
—Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland City Councilmember

“Cannabiz is politically informative and culturally astute. Geluardi paints a complex picture of a transitional moment—one in which the nation’s kneejerk anti-marijuana politics and criminal justice sanctions are falling out of favor. He shows how medical marijuana, a once outlandish idea, has become mainstream, and how quickly America’s economic and political culture has adapted to this new reality.”
—Sasha Abramsky, Inside Obama’s Brain and Breadline USA