West Hollywood is hosting the Cannabis Culture & Change Conference on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026, inside City Council Chambers. During its first-ever LGBTQ+ Takeover at MJBizCon, Emerald Village unveiled plans for a new signature event in partnership with the City of West Hollywood: a one-day conference exploring the intersection of cannabis culture, LGBTQ+ history, and social change. Amd they’re keeping it free.
The point is pretty straightforward, it’s a look back at how queer communities and cannabis activism overlapped in California, especially during the early days of the HIV AIDS epidemic, and what that history has to do with the way West Hollywood talks about cannabis today.
One of the main draws will be the premiere screening of Join the Club!, a documentary that looks back at the early days of medical cannabis through queer communities. Emerald Village Executive Director Scott Schmidt said the conference is about honoring the pioneers who fought for “compassion, access, and equality,”
The speaker lineup looks like a nice mix of politics and policy. It will include Assemblymember Matt Haney, West Hollywood Councilmember Danny Hang, former Mayor John D’Amico and Lanny Swerdlow of the Brownie Mary Democrats to name a few. Ngaio Bealum is also scheduled to appear.
West Hollywood’s connection to medical cannabis isn’t necessarily about being first, that definitely belongs to San Francisco and Denis Peron’s San Francisco’s Cannabis Buyers Club. It’s more about what came after Prop. 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 was passes. The City had to decide if they were going to allow access and if so, how they would manage it. They adopted a dispensary ordinance and kept the footprint limited, treating it like a land-use issue that had to be managed. It hasn’t always been easy. WeHo dispensaries were raided back in 2007 and 2011 and 2014.
Schmidt is slated to close the day with a keynote called “Come Out for Cannabis,” which Emerald Village says previews a talk he plans to deliver this spring at the University of Barcelona’s CDays conference, set for April 16, 2026, in Bilbao, Spain.
Emerald Village is also floating what sounds like some fun side events built around the conference, but it will all depend on whether or not they get sponsorship support. Some of the Ideas include a kick-off drag brunch, afternoon gatherings, and receptions or after-parties. The aim is to get people out and support local businesses, not just park them in a room and then send them home.
We’ll follow up as we get closer to the date. In the meantime, detail are posted here. Updates are on Instagram here.
oh brother.