'Gentle Ban' on Medical Marijuana Moves Forward
A proposed city-wide ordinance would ban all medical marijuana dispenaries, including those in Westwood.
A proposed law to ban all medical marijuana dispensaries -- but allow primary caregivers to dispense the drug and licensed patients to grow their own -- cleared one hurdle today.
The City Council Public Safety Committee forwarded a draft ordinance prepared by City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's office to the full City Council. The proposal also will make a stop at the Planning Commission to receive its recommendations.
"There are people in the City of Los Angeles that truly need marijuana as a medicine, not to get high, not to make money, but to get well," City Attorney Carmen Trutanich told the committee.
The ordinance is a major reversal for the city, which has tried since 2007 to allow and regulate pot shops. That effort led to a boom in the number of dispensaries, estimated at above 800 at its peak, and more than 60 lawsuits against the city.
Officials say a court ruling last October against the City of Long Beach's medical marijuana ordinance forced the city's hand. The ruling said cities could not "affirmatively" authorize marijuana dispensaries because to do so would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act, which considers marijuana illegal. The city's ordinance had OK'd the dispensaries, but sought to reduce the number to below 100.
Assistant City Attorney Jane Usher told the committee the ruling made the city's position "very troubling."
"You have an ordinance on the books concerning medical marijuana, and your ordinance is not implementable," Usher said. "You do not have a good hand."
The city has spent millions of dollars over the past two years fighting lawsuits against the ordinance, appearing weekly and sometimes daily in court, Usher told the committee.
She urged the council to move swiftly to pass the new ordinance, which she described as a "gentle ban." It would be the first law of its kind in the state to ban marijuana businesses but also make exceptions for legal uses and transactions, she said.
"The essence of those exceptions is to allow seriously ill patients, together with their primary caregivers, to engage in cultivation," Usher said.
Sarah Armstrong, who runs Nature's Natural Cooperative Care in Reseda and works with the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance, took issue with the concept of a gentle ban. "It is a lie. There is no such thing as a gentle ban," Armstrong said. "Saying that somehow caregivers are going to take over this responsibility is disingenuous in the extreme."
Primary caregivers do not have enough time or energy to grow marijuana, she said.
Armstrong called for the council to take more time to fix the existing ordinance to effectively weed out "rogue" dispensaries that don't want to pay taxes and get legitimate business licenses. "We're tired of being tarred with the same brush," Armstrong said.
Meanwhile, California Attorney General Kamala Harris sent a letter to the Democratic leadership in the state Legislature, urging lawmakers to fix the Compassionate Use Act, the law the first legalized medical marijuana in the state. She said the law has created a legal grey area for cities and counties.
She urged legislators to fix the law, in part by defining the terms "collective" and "dispensary," clarifying what it means to be a nonprofit distributor of marijuana and providing a way to monitor the health and safety of edible marijuana products.
Councilman Jose Huizar, who drafted one of several motions calling for the ban, said he did so reluctantly. "I personally believe in the use of and the value of medical marijuana for patients who actually need it," Huizar said. "But if we are put in a situation like we are today, where we have no tools at our disposal to control for the ill-effects of medical marijuana dispensaries on local communities, we have no other option but to repeal our ordinance, ban dispensaries and wait to see what happens in the California Supreme Court case."
The court is expected to announce by Feb. 8 whether it will hear an appeal of the Pack case.
--City News Service
malcolm kyle
5:44 am on Sunday, January 15, 2012
Prohibition has escalated gang warfare beyond what was experienced in the days of alcohol bootlegging.
* It has create a prison-for-profit synergy with drug lords.
* It has helped remove many important civil liberties from the very citizens it falsely claims to represent.
* It has put previously unknown and contaminated drugs on the streets.
* It has grossly escalated Murder, Theft, Muggings and Burglaries.
* It has diverted scarce law-enforcement resources away from protecting citizens from the ever escalating violence against their person or property.
* It has overcrowded the courts and prisons, thus making it increasingly impossible to curtail the people who are hurting and terrorizing others.
* It has evolved local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, helping them control vast swaths of territory while gifting them with significant social and military resources.
Imagine if we were to chop down every single tree on the planet as a response to our failure to prevent tree-climbing accidents. That's what our misguided drug policy looks like. Isn't it time we all should up and told the government we're tired of being beaten and jailed so that pharmaceutical companies can poison and kill us for obscene profits?
Prohibition Prevents Regulation : Legalize, Regulate and Tax!
Lee
8:22 am on Sunday, January 15, 2012
If the gov. Would legalize marijuana and tax it just like cigs and alcohol. We as our country could b out of debt in 6 months. So please legalize it and tax it.
Charles Queen
2:38 pm on Sunday, January 15, 2012
It does need to be legalised for at least medicinal purposes.If the federa; gov had no p[roblem with the major pharms brining out their newest pain killer,Zohydro which is almost pure hydrocodone then they should have no problem whatsoever with legalising medicinal marijuana.At least it doesn't do to people what anything with hydrocodone in it does
Muzzy Lu
5:45 pm on Sunday, January 15, 2012
This is nuts to try to close down all marijuana dispensaries in L.A. It won't work because they will be sued by patients and the dispensaries. It is a great time during a recession to put thousands of people out of work.
Great e-book on medical marijuana: MARIJUANA - Guide to Buying, Growing, Harvesting, and Making Medical Marijuana Oil and Delicious Candies to Treat Pain and Ailments by Mary Bendis, Second Edition. This book has great recipes for easy marijuana oil, delicious Cannabis Chocolates, and tasty Dragon Teeth Mints.
goo.gl/iYjPn goo.gl/Jfs61
John Perkins
9:04 pm on Sunday, January 15, 2012
Assistant City Attorney Jane Usher hasn't a clue and is not compassionate. I'm a patient. My name is John Perkins and I have Severe Psoriatic Arthritis. Call me at 510-565-9537 to validate who I am. I used to be on Big Pharma meds but I was still under a lot of pain. I switched to MJ 2 years ago and I can now walk without pain. I do not have a caregiver and I don't want to grow my own MJ or make my own hash for butter. Do you have a clue what that entails and how many months it takes to grow or how much time it takes to make butter and other edibles? And what if my crop failed anyways because of mites or other issues? Plus, I use a lot of different strains, some of which I would be unable to get my hands on because they are proprietary to some places. I go to dispensaries as it makes it easy on me; compassionate right. City Council please listen to the logic of what I've stated above.
Citizens of CA voted for compassion and its up to you to help set that up. BTW: Look at the history of Prohibition of Alcohol, how it happened, who the dry's and the wet's were, and how/why it was repealed. We are in a very similar situation (cartels distribute and make money, governments ban has been an expensive failure to everyone,..). Compassion is what you can be remembered for. Don't be pressured by the drys because of the Fed (which will have to change its ways because of your great work). Come on! Peace!
HashCentral
9:26 pm on Sunday, January 15, 2012
Pharmacies sell medication. Medical Cannabis is a medication. Then why ban dispensaries who are selling medication? How does it make sense to ban the sale of medication to people who need it by using valid store fronts? BTW: Dispensaries are the best thing to happen since the the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 was enacted.
slinky
5:51 am on Friday, February 10, 2012
Has Jose Huizar defined the ill-effects that medical marijuana dispensaries have had on communities? It took me until late last year to even realize that those businesses with the green crosses are dispensaries. I have never witnessed people hanging out and smoking pot in front of dispensaries (I did see a guy in front of a Target store toking away one day; maybe we need to ban Target stores). I read a LOT and don't recall reading anything about crime increasing near dispensaries. Perhaps if Huizar provides some sort of empirical evidence that dispensaries are in fact detrimental to society, I'll be on his side. Until then, I see no reason to not treat dispensaries like the legal businesses that they are.