Pubdate: Thu, 09 May 2013
Source: Bakersfield Californian, The (CA)
Copyright: 2013 The Bakersfield Californian
Contact:  http://www.bakersfield.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/36

LOCAL CONTROL OF DISPENSARIES MAKES SENSE

Monday's ruling by the California Supreme Court that essentially 
authorizes cities and counties to decide individually whether they 
will allow marijuana dispensaries to operate in their jurisdictions 
makes good sense. Local governments ought to be able to determine 
whether marijuana dispensaries are a good fit for their particular 
community standards and, if so, under what circumstances.

The question that should influence these local decisions -- which 
would be enforced through zoning restrictions -- is whether 
dispensaries are catering to the needs of patients with valid, 
diagnosed medical needs or are simply retail outlets for recreational 
users happy to score their weed as easily as they might buy a pack of 
cigarettes. Dispensaries certainly often give the outward impression 
that they cater primarily to the latter group, with locked doors, 
drawn shades and furtive customer behavior.

Still, the benefits of medicinal marijuana have gained support in the 
mainstream medical community: The National Cancer Institute, for one, 
acknowledges marijuana's benefits. A compassionate society makes it 
available to those truly in need. That's why medicinal marijuana, or 
its active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol, aka THC, should be 
available as a pain reliever and anti-nausea agent -- but not by way 
of dispensaries. Medicinal marijuana should be administered under 
Food and Drug Administration control. We've had it with incompatible 
state laws.

A patient with glaucoma -- another condition that can be helped with 
marijuana -- should be able to secure a prescription from a 
board-certified ophthalmologist, then have that prescription filled 
at a pharmacy.

The feds now ban marijuana for any purposes, though the Office of 
National Drug Control Policy seems to realize that at some point 
medical marijuana is likely to become reality. The agency's 
contention is that smoking marijuana offers no benefits, but other 
delivery forms may.

"This Administration joins major medical societies in supporting 
increased research into marijuana's many components, delivered in a 
safe (non-smoked) manner, in the hopes that they can be available for 
medical professionals to legally prescribe if proven safe and 
effective. The U.S. federal government is the single largest funder 
of research on marijuana in the world," the office says.

Two bills before the Legislature could still make it difficult for 
individual cities and counties to regulate dispensaries. One of 
those, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, would provide a 
regulatory structure governing the state's medical marijuana program. 
It would "establish statewide standards for the cultivation, 
manufacturing, testing, transportation, distribution, and sales of 
medical marijuana and medical marijuana products," according to the 
Marijuana Policy Project. Such a law could change the landscape 
significantly, as would a possible ballot initiative on the 
legalization of marijuana for recreational use.

Voter approved legalization, at least, would end the current 
dispensary scam. Folks wanting their pot could simply buy it. That 
would be more respectable than allowing a perfectly healthy young 
adult to ask a storefront doctor for an "evaluation" to secure a 
marijuana card because he or she "can't sleep."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom