California operates the Medical Marijuana Program (MMP), administered by California Department of Public Health.
California was the first state in the nation to legalise medical cannabis. Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act, passed by ballot initiative in November 1996 with roughly 56% of the vote, making possession and cultivation lawful for patients with a physician's recommendation. The initiative was deliberately broad and left implementation almost entirely undefined, which produced two decades of county-by-county variation. Senate Bill 420 added a voluntary state identification card program in 2003 and created the framework administered today by the California Department of Public Health. The Medical Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act of 2015 introduced statewide licensing for the first time, and Proposition 64 in 2016 legalised adult use while preserving the separate medical program and its patient protections. Because the medical and adult-use systems now run in parallel, California patients navigate a different landscape than patients in states with a single medical-only program.
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