Data-driven journalism mapping celebrity arrests, crime, courts and Hollywood.
Law, culture, enforcement and geography—through news, public records, arrest data and visual art.
The Cannabis Mugshot Project is a developing Hollywood Most Wanted art-and-data study examining how geography, law and enforcement shape the way cannabis is treated—and the way people accused of cannabis offenses are represented.
West Hollywood is a focal case study. The city has long supported cannabis decriminalization and created a local licensing framework that includes adult-use retail, medical-use businesses, delivery and licensed on-site consumption areas. West Hollywood describes itself as being at the forefront of the national discussion and as one of the few cities in the region authorizing cannabis consumption-area business licenses.
HMW does not label West Hollywood the single “most lax” jurisdiction in the United States because there is no standardized national measure that would make that ranking statistically defensible. Instead, the project uses West Hollywood as an example of a comparatively permissive local legal market and asks what changes when the same substance is viewed through a different jurisdiction.
That contrast matters because cannabis law remains uneven across the United States. California permits adult use within state limits, while federal law and the laws of other states continue to prohibit or criminalize various forms of possession, cultivation, distribution and trafficking. Cannabis-related arrests, prosecutions and incarceration therefore still occur, particularly in jurisdictions or circumstances where the conduct remains illegal.
The project will combine mugshot-based artwork, sourced arrest reporting, public enforcement data and jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction legal context. The purpose is not to treat a mugshot as proof of guilt. It is to examine how policy, enforcement and imagery can produce radically different public narratives around similar conduct.
How does geography change whether cannabis is framed as a licensed consumer product, a nightlife experience, an illicit market, or a criminal offense—and who is visually remembered through the mugshot when enforcement occurs?
West Hollywood licenses multiple categories of cannabis businesses, including on-site consumption areas. Public consumption outside authorized settings remains restricted, and state licensing and operating rules still apply.
Official West Hollywood cannabis rules →California allows adult use for people 21 and older within specified possession, cultivation, retail and consumption rules. Local governments can impose additional restrictions.
California Department of Cannabis Control →State and local cannabis laws vary substantially, and federal law continues to govern federal offenses and federal property. HMW’s national arrest feed is therefore presented as enforcement reporting, not as a single uniform category of conduct.
DEA data & statistics →Automatically refreshed U.S.-focused headlines from external publishers. These links are for discovery and context; they are not HMW reporting unless HMW separately publishes a sourced story.
Feed methodology: HMW uses U.S.-focused Google News RSS searches for cannabis and cannabis-arrest/enforcement terms. Headlines link outward to the publisher. Inclusion in the feed does not mean an allegation has been proven, and a cannabis-related arrest can involve conduct beyond simple possession, including trafficking, unlicensed commercial activity or other alleged offenses.
HMW is developing additional cannabis data and art layers, including mapped cannabis enforcement, jurisdiction comparisons, a cannabis-arrest timeline, licensed-place context, mugshot-based artworks and deeper analysis of how local law changes the visual and legal record.
Maps are art here. The next phase will place law, arrest reporting, legal-market locations and artwork on the same geographic canvas—while keeping each data type clearly labeled.