Pubdate: Mon, 18 Jan 2016
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2016 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248

MORE CHAOS AHEAD FOR MEDICAL POT?

If L.A. Doesn't Start Rethinking Its Rules, the Cannabis Industry 
Could End Up Rewriting Them.

In October, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed three bills establishing a 
statewide system to regulate medicinal cannabis, he called it a 
long-overdue framework that would "make sure patients have access to 
medical marijuana, while ensuring a robust tracking system." He 
should have added: "Everywhere in the state, except Los Angeles," 
because it turns out California's strict licensing regime won't apply 
to the state's largest city. What's more, under the terms of the new 
state law, if L.A. doesn't change its existing rules, all medicinal 
pot shops in the city's boundaries will be illegal in 2018.

In other words, it is possible that there's even more chaos ahead for 
this city's already-unacceptably-chaotic medical marijuana regime.

It took nearly 20 years after Californians passed the Compassionate 
Use Act for the state to adopt a comprehensive system to regulate the 
cultivation, transportation and sale of medical marijuana - and now 
it is going to exclude 10% of the state's population and a 
significant piece of the cannabis marketplace, and come into 
seemingly intractable conflict with the city's most recent effort to 
manage the situation.

Los Angeles failed multiple times to regulate medical marijuana, but 
finally in 2013 it passed Proposition D. That ballot measure allowed 
135 dispensaries, all of which had been in business for at least six 
years, to remain open, while banning others.

But in a complicated, lawyerly maneuver, the measure did not actually 
permit those 135 dispensaries to operate - which legal experts at the 
time said the city could not do because marijuana remains illegal 
under federal law. Prop D merely said the city would not prosecute 
those 135 shops.

And that's the problem.

Under the state's new Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, 
California would, for the first time, issue licenses to medical 
cannabis businesses. But the state will only grant them to businesses 
with permits from their local jurisdictions. Because L.A. doesn't 
issue permits, growers, testing labs and dispensaries in L.A. won't 
be eligible for state licenses. If L.A. pot shops stay open after 
2018 - when the state expects to begin licensing and enforcement - 
they could theoretically face criminal prosecution.

Dispensary operators, unsurprisingly, are not waiting for the city to 
resolve this conflict.

The Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance is drafting a measure for 
the city ballot in November that would impose a new local permitting 
scheme not only for dispensaries, but also for growers, manufacturers 
and delivery services - all of which are illegal or questionably 
legal under Prop D. The ballot measure could also remove the 
135-dispensary cap, potentially opening the door to hundreds of legal 
pot shops.

At one point before Prop D went into effect, city officials estimated 
there were more than 800 medicinal marijuana businesses in the city.

The City Council should not let marijuana businesses set city policy. 
L.A. leaders need to come up with their own permitting and regulatory 
scheme, either at the ballot or by amendment, setting reasonable 
rules and reasonable limits on where and how pot businesses can 
operate. The new policy should establish a process by which medicinal 
cannabis businesses that meet the requirements can get a permit - 
which is less of a legal problem now that the federal government has 
said it won't prosecute in states with medical marijuana laws - and a 
process for revoking those permits if owners break the rules or 
create a nuisance.

The council ought to consider whether to cap the number of 
dispensaries as Prop D now does, or whether strict zoning or a 
conditional use permit requirement could effectively limit the number 
of pot shops in a community, as the city now does with liquor stores.

The City Council and Mayor Eric Garcetti must lead on this issue, 
rather than sitting back and allowing the increasingly powerful 
marijuana industry to set its own rules. (Imagine the outcry if oil 
or billboard companies tried to develop their own permitting rules 
through a ballot measure.) California and L.A. voters have made it 
clear that patients should be able obtain medical marijuana, and it 
is the city's job to develop policies that allow patient access while 
protecting neighborhoods from being overrun.

It is particularly pressing because the medical marijuana rules 
adopted today are expected to become the template if state voters 
legalize recreational marijuana in November.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom