Abstract
Marijuana has been a subject of policy debate throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Recently, with Colorado and Washington legalizing recreational marijuana, focus has shifted from effective prohibition to effective regulation. As a result of the shifting tides of marijuana policies across the United States, the federal government issued a list of priorities that states must be addressed in a legal marijuana market, whether recreational or medical, in order to effectively mitigate negative consequences and avoid federal intervention. In this thesis, I analyze those federal priorities, describe best practices that states have implemented in order to address those priorities, and assess California’s Medical Marijuana Program (MMP) in terms of its capacity to meet federal priorities. My results indicate that California’s MMP does not employ best practices to address stated federal priorities. In the final chapter, I offer recommendations to reform the California MMP in order to meet federal guidelines.