Pubdate: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA) Copyright: 2009 North County Times Contact: http://www.nctimes.com/forms/letters/editor.html Website: http://www.nctimes.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080 Author: Dick Daniels Note: Dick Daniels is a member of the Escondido City Council and also serves as mayor pro tem. Cited: Escondido City Council http://www.ci.escondido.ca.us/government/members/index.html Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal) MARIJUANA OUTLETS HAVE RISKS FOR ESCONDIDO We risk suffering the penalties under the law of unintended consequences, primarily in the area of law enforcement, if we try to allow the use of marijuana for any purpose in our city. What would be intended as a means to provide compassionate care for the seriously ill would more likely add to the already daunting task of controlling the use of dangerous drugs in our community. This is not biased conjecture. The California Police Chiefs Association has identified numerous problems relating to these dispensaries where they operate. They include, but are not limited to burglaries and even robberies of dispensaries and patrons who leave those facilities as well as loitering and people smoking marijuana in the parking lots after purchasing the substance. There also is the problem of people using fake documents to obtain marijuana under false pretenses. And, it's entirely possible that some dispensaries would choose to ignore the medical criteria and sell marijuana to whomever comes through their doors. Locally, even without legalizing its use for medicinal purposes, our own police department has already seen more cases of people using medical reasons as an excuse for cultivating and using marijuana. Among other things, our department predicts that marijuana dispensaries will adversely affect police patrol time and resources. Like any city, we need to find ways to reduce our police department's workload, not add to it. Finally, allowing any use of marijuana sends a mixed message to our community's youth. It says, in effect, that using marijuana is not really dangerous after all if people who are sick can use it. Certainly, there's more to the issue; but it's hard to communicate subtle exceptions like this in a public education program. The message has to be clear and consistent if we're to educate our young people about not using dangerous drugs. I'd rather we be perfectly clear about the dangers of using any illegal drug under any circumstance than dilute the effort by trying to explain exceptions. It's a dangerous drug, period. While I understand marijuana has some medicinal value in treating seriously ill people, the problems our city would face in trying to legally control the availability of an illegal substance under any condition far outweigh whatever medical benefits there would be. We need to be concerned about the greater public good - protecting the entire community - not just the interests of a very few people who would need the drug and certainly not the people who would abuse its sale or use. For that reason, we need to use whatever regulatory powers we have to curb the presence of illegal drugs in our city. Adopting the ordinance I've introduced to permanently ban medical marijuana dispensaries is one means by which we can do so. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake