Pubdate: Thu, 16 Feb 2012
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/246

L.A., LONG BEACH PUNTING ON POT

What part of a court ruling on medical marijuana collectives doesn't 
the Long Beach City Council get?

Apparently council members don't quite grasp that under a state 
appeals court ruling cities can ban medical marijuana outlets but 
can't allow them through a permitting process like the ones Long 
Beach and Los Angeles use.

Long Beach City Attorney Bob Shannon had urged the council to shut 
down all dispensaries until an appeal to the state Supreme Court - 
providing further guidelines to cities - is decided. A similar 
proposal is before the L.A. City Council, where unpermitted 
dispensaries abound. Authorities say that crime around the 
dispensaries - both permitted and not - is a tremendous burden on police.

But the Long Beach City Council hedged its bet Tuesday by allowing 18 
permitted dispensaries to keep selling marijuana for six months. They 
did, however, vote to ban dispensaries that don't have permits. It 
appears the Long Beach City Council is buying time as the issue is 
decided by the state Supreme Court, which may take another year or 
more to rule whether the permitting process is legal.

Worse, the city prosecutor says it will take up to a year to shut 
down the estimated 35 unpermitted dispensaries in Long Beach.

There's a faster way: Just ask neighborhood groups where the illegal 
dispensaries are located. In a week they'd be identified and shuttered.

In fact, the Los Angeles Police Department has managed to shutter 
most of the illegal dispensaries in north San Fernando Valley. Police 
said that one dispensary was pulling in hundreds of thousands of 
dollars in profit. This despite state law that mandates dispensaries 
be nonprofits in which collective members contribute to the growing 
and harvesting of the drug.

An LAPD official told a reporter, "You come in the door of these 
stores, they sign you up into the collective, you are now a member of 
the collective, and you give us a predetermined donation for the 
marijuana that we give to you. That is absolutely sales. Donations 
are voluntary."

An attorney for several medical marijuana dispensaries said cities 
have the right to regulate dispensaries, but a total ban is inappropriate.

An outright ban, like the one proposed in both Los Angeles and Long 
Beach, won't prevent patients who need marijuana for treating 
illnesses from growing their own.

That's a far cry from allowing the hundreds of rogue dispensaries in 
the L.A. area to operate in what one Long Beach official called "the 
wild West."

Jose Huizar, who represents Eagle Rock on the Los Angeles City 
Council, is the champion of the L.A. ban. He has said that illegal 
dispensaries are opening daily, some near schools and parks. In other 
words, the dispensary operators are thumbing their noses at 
residents, police and city officials. But even though the ban is 
labeled a temporary urgency ordinance, it is languishing with no set 
date for the council to consider it.

The clear solution is for both cities to ban all dispensaries while 
the state Supreme Court decides the issue. What part of that doesn't 
the Long Beach City Council understand?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom