Pubdate: Sun, 25 Apr 2010
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Copyright: 2010 The Press-Enterprise Company
Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html
Website: http://www.pe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830
Author: Leslie Parrilla
Cited: Americans for Safe Access http://www.americansforsafeaccess.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Americans+for+Safe+Access
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

MOBILE MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY CITED BY CORONA, NORCO POLICE

The first thing people see when they step into a converted 1985 Pace 
Arrow motorhome in Norco is a glass display case filled with 
chocolate-covered cannabis cookies and medical marijuana labeled 
"blueberry" and "cheese."

The collective has been on the road for seven months, but this month 
its operators were cited by Norco and Corona police for possessing 
drug paraphernalia and operating a dispensary, said Stewart Hauptman 
and his wife, Helen Cherry, who run the collective.

The couple plans to contest the citations and challenge zoning laws 
in the two cities that ban dispensaries.

The motorhome collective is parked at the center of a legal debate 
over whether municipalities have the authority to ban collectives 
despite a state law that permits them. Medical marijuana became legal 
for medicinal use in 1996, and municipalities are permitted to 
regulate them. But legal experts disagree over whether cities can ban them.

Legal experts are watching a state appeals case filed against Anaheim 
by the Qualified Patients Association.  The association argues that 
the city cannot ban a collective because it conflicts with state law, 
said Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, a 
patient-advocacy group in Oakland.

Cherry said her August 2008 experience filling a medical marijuana 
recommendation for chronic back pain in Los Angeles led her and 
Hauptman to open the nonprofit Lakeview Collective.

The clinic she went to was less than appealing, she said.

"The paint was coming off the walls and (there were) bars on the 
windows and no medical equipment to be found. I was like, what the 
heck is this? This doesn't look legitimate," said Cherry, 60.

Six weeks later, she teamed up with two physicians to open Serenity 
Medical Evaluations in Norco, where recommendations are written.

Patients then join the Lakeview Collective to purchase the medical 
marijuana. The collective has about 700 members from the Inland area 
and as far away as Las Vegas, Cherry said.

"We really want to take care of patients. We're not looking for the 
18-year-old stoners," Cherry said. "We have people coming in 
wheelchairs, in walkers."

William Sump, who runs a Riverside collective called the Inland 
Empire Health and Wellness Center Medical Marijuana Collective, said 
he knows of at least four similar mobile medical marijuana collectives.

Riverside County sheriff's Lt. Ross Cooper, who runs the Norco 
station, said the collective is a sales operation, not a nonprofit 
organization, so it doesn't meet state guidelines and violates 
Norco's municipal code.

Norco City Attorney John Harper said the city is seeking a temporary 
restraining order against what he said is a dispensary.

"We don't perceive what they do as a collective," Harper said. "They 
sell marijuana out of a van."

Attorney Lawrence Bynum, who represents the collective, said it is legal. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake