L.A.'s drive to control medical marijuana moving slowly

The city of Los Angeles' high-profile drive to gain control over medical marijuana dispensaries is moving slowly.

The L.A. City Council adopted a moratorium on new dispensaries in 2007 but failed to ensure it was enforced. In the last two years, the 186 dispensaries allowed to stay open during the ban have been joined by hundreds of others.

That has irked law enforcement officials who argue that many, if not most, of the dispensaries operate as nonprofit collectives in name only.

Next week, police officers and prosecutors from around L.A. County plan to meet for a training lunch to discuss "the eradication of medical marijuana dispensaries."

Read the complete story on L.A.'s medical marijuana dispensaries.

-- John Hoeffel

Photo: A patient displays a jar of medical marijuana outside the Roscoe Compassionate Collective in Canoga Park. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

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Comments

[jim henson]

How many liquor stores are there in the city? When will we shut them down?

What problems other than irking law enforcement are the dispensaries causing?

Will we be better off when marijuana sales go back underground?

[Concerned_Parent]

As a nation, we would be wise to adopt an approach allowing individuals to grow a little marijuana for personal use. It would put the illegal drug dealers out of business if users could legally grow a small amount for themselves and/or share it with others. Limit the size of the growing area or the number of plants, and put a small user-fee on it to cover administrative costs, something like a fishing license.

One possibility:$100 per year for a permit to cultivate a dozen plants.
It's a win-win.

[Russell]

Why do they show this female with no care about her personal hygene? I smoke medical pot and I dont look like that. The first thing you see is her dirty nails.

[kooo]

Liquor stores are regulated by the ABC. Marijuana sales under Prop 215 should be regulated, but do it fairly please. Get rid of the bad apples (such as the "doctor" exposed by ABC channel 7 recently) so that the remaining ones will maintain a certain standard.

[Mike R]

This effort needs to come to a screeching and universally difinitive halt - the sooner the better. The one thing we absolutely DO NOT need is any more government control. We are already well along on the path to becoming a police state.

What's next? They already steal our money and give it away to corrupt corporations under the guise of bailouts. They pass laws allowing for the absolute compromise of our privacy and civil liberties. They use the War on Drugs to justify building and maintaining a paramilitary police force that breaks into peoples houses and shoots their pets with impunity.

Marijuana is not the danger that the government would have us believe. Most are now aware that it is almost completely begnin. As a recreational drug or as a medicine, the most dangerous side effect of marijuana is the risk of being arrested. No need for violence. No need, even, for a victim. Simply having some dried plants in your pocket can ruin you life.

Prohibition is not control. It is the complete forfeiture of control. If we ever hope to end cartel and gang violence, we must end prohibition. If we ever hope to keep drugs away from children, we need to legalize and regulate. We need to stop bleeding American tax payers by arresting nearly 2 million people a year in the name of a war that has obviously failed!

[AB 390]

Marijuana should be legal for ALL adults: http://yes390.org

[E.Madison]

Here is a paragraph from the Third Draft of the Medical Marijuana Collectives Ordinance. READ the last Sentence...

THIRD REVISED DRAFT ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING REGULATIONS
REGARDING MEDICAL MARIJUANA COLLECTIVES

Conditions of Operation.
1. The property shall be monitored at all times by web-based closedcircuit
television for security purposes. The camera and recording system must
be of adequate quality, color rendition and resolution to allow the ready
identification of any individual committing a crime anywhere on or near the
property. The recordings of the monitoring shall be maintained for a period of
one week and made available and accessible by the collective to the Department of Building and Safety and the Police Department upon request, without the need for a search warrant, subpoena or court order, for review and copying;"

There you go!
Now every Physician and Pharmacist that prescribes Botox and Oxycotin is NEXT!! Physicians must now video-monitor everyone who is injected with the deadly strain of Botox and every pharmacist must have a video copy for review without warrant for anyone who comes in for their prescription of the most abused drugs in the USA. If it's good enough for medical marijuana why not these guys?

Unconstitutional and Unconscionable!!!

Wake up Docs. You're next!

[Warren]

The city should tax the collectives instead of trying to drive them out of the city. There only reason there are so many dispensaries is because of the demand for the product. If the demand wasn't there, there wouldn't be profits that the city says the owners are earning.

[Roxanne]

I believe that closing of dispensaries that are not working within the law is fine but please "eradication of all"..medicial marijuana is just as important a prescription to those of us who have chosen this as an alternative to using oh, say Zoloft, Prozac, etc. Have you heard the pharmaceutical disclamiers lately??? Blood in your stool, migrianes, so on and so on. The cops need to focus on the illegial and not make a mission statement for "all".

[Stephen Carlson]

Whether the LAPD and the prosecutor's office like it or not, medical marijauna is legal in the state of California. It rankles them that dispensaries turn a profit? CVS, Rite-Aid, Walgreens et. al. all operate in order to make a profit by selling prescribed drugs deadlier than any THC product. In fact, our entire economic system is based on making a profit. It is my deepest hope that if the LAPD and LA prosecutor's office decide to take illegal action against dispensaries engaged in the lawful operation of businesses, that they find themselves listed as "defendant" in the same courts they hope to use against the dispensaries. Just as the "patriotic" like to tell people who happen to find fault with this country to leave, if the members of the LAPD and LA prosecutor's office don't like the laws of the state, they are welcome to move. Perhaps Texas would be more to their liking.

[Timothy]

Well stated, Mike R.

[brettstrodamus]

Concerned Parent, that's not a bad idea, but take it a step further and make it a stamp added to the existing fishing and/or hunting license and use the money to keep the cartels out of the state parks and forest lands.
Russell, the person pictured is likely a transplant from south of the border where personal hygiene and cleanliness is optional. Remember, when the Swine Flu started in Mexico City they found that less than 15% of public schools had restrooms or facilities to wash their hands. Multiply that number across the country and you have the perfect petri dish for a filthy viral culture.
Clearly this photo was crafted to give a highly propagandized negative perception of medical marijuana.

[Chris]

Why is it that CVS can post profits, Pfizer can post profits, and Kaiser can post profits, but THIS sector of health care is relegated to the nonprofit sector? People who use this extremely effective medication should not be ostracized from the mainstream, and neither should the businesses that supply said medication!

[Julian B Duron]

This BUD'S for you!
It is just a matter of fully documenting taxable sales of product. With the right revenue cut of profits of taxable sales this all goes away. I think, maybe, oh I forget, my memory slips. This is why I do not smoke it no more!

[Richard Steeb]

Let's discuss the eradication of mendacious thuggery instead. There cannot be more dispensaries than the market demands, and the "greedy" ones will fail as the "quality" ones succeed. We don't need coercion, we don't need black market price support by public servants. We need cannabis prohibition to be abolished and CNOA to go find honest work.

-Richard P Steeb, San Jose California