Another wrong-headed medical marijuana proposal in Los Angeles
Just as federal medical marijuana policy appears to be moving toward sanity, some local officials in the nation’s second largest city seem to be losing it altogether.
Earlier this month, I reported on Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley’s decision to use resources prosecuting each of the area’s medical marijuana collectives as common drug dealers — even those operating within city or county guidelines. Now, Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich joins Cooley in his fight against the popular and long-standing medical marijuana laws.
Trutanich is pressing the L.A. City Council to quickly adopt an ordinance effectively banning the sale of medical marijuana through storefront collectives. This uniquely draconian proposal is based on the false premise that California law doesn’t allow collectives to accept money from members as reimbursement for their medical marijuana.
Just last year, the state’s attorney general issued guidelines declaring that, while medical marijuana could not be sold for profit, it is perfectly legal to exchange money to cover the costs of its production and distribution. The guidelines clearly state, “Members also may reimburse the collective or cooperative for marijuana that has been allocated to them.” Further, California law exempts certain medical marijuana-related activities from prosecution under laws that otherwise prohibit the sales of marijuana.
Bizarrely, the ordinance also doesn’t allow any medical marijuana facility to operate within 1,000 feet of a “hospital or medical facility.” Hmm… I thought that patient collectives were medical facilities.
Clearly medical marijuana collectives in Los Angeles are in need of some more controls (local patients and collective operators have been calling for regulations for years), and some of the facilities in the area are probably not operating in good faith compliance with the law. But the answer to this problem is not in a broad prohibitionist policy that’s out of step with state law and a boon to underground drug dealers who would undoubtably fill the vacuum left once all the collectives are closed. The answer, as always, is in sound regulations which facilitate open and safe access to patients while addressing community concerns.
Stay tuned for more developments from the City of Angels. I’ll be posting them here as they unfold.
Tagged with: California and Carmen Tutanich and Los Angeles and Steve Cooley by the author
21 comments
The laws there are quirky at best, every step has a loophole or exploit. Why in God’s name would they ban dispensaries from making money while other drug dispensaries (pharmacies) are rolling in profit? They should either put cannabis next to the Prozac in a pharmacy or make pharmacies non-profit as well.
wow….someone tell Obama this…he should be disappointed…oh wait…im sure he already knows…laughed about it…then went back to congress to push this second stimulus package….
Fuck the prohibs that think they will win this WAR on the American people. WHO is voting for these assholes? Whoever is needs to be tried for TREASON!
ditto JJ
Thanks for the article/post.
Always a good topic that has been debated for many years now. Someone needs to lay out a good plan and make some decisions on how to go about legalizing and regulating this drug if it is to be used on a medicinal basis.
and just in case Andrew or anyone else wonders what a “loser stoner like me” does for a living, I am a Plastics Engineer at a blown film packaging plant in Missouri. I make approx. 32,000 a year *only get 120$s back in taxes at tax time* and I really dont care what anyone thinks about my job. I WAS a high school football player that was well on my way to being a “college educated man” until my knees gave out and my back got very bad really fast thanks to muscular dystrophy. I could bench 600, squat 1100, and dead lift 1400. Easily built good enough to squash a little grape like Andrew. But thanks to my mother and father, I got hit with my disease and now work with the lower class of society that probably have more personality and MORALS in their big toe than you do in your whole body. But I am proud, and I know what makes me happy. NOT MONEY. Simple things in life give me my freedoms. I smoke weed, I laugh, I have a very healthy and great relationship with my fiance, and my 14 year old daughter, that is a str8 A student and will soon probably be the next President. Yeah, weed is illegal right now but will soon be free. Andrew, you might make more money than me, you might pay more taxes, and you might have more “property” than I will ever imagine, but at least I am free, whether or not you and your fellow prohib’s want me to be, I WILL STAND Tall. I will fight for my rights and liberties and I will live my life the way I see fit. America was founded by people like myself who were tired of being “slaves” under English rulers and dictators and kings. If you want that kind of life, go to Iran, or even North Korea. Hell, much more government interference with freedoms, and you wont have to go anywhere to see Big Brother….but I will still be free. I will still have compasion. I will still see the American dream.
These ambitous Attorney’s are part of a network of loosers trying to get sponsers to back them on their quest up the political ladder. Just like their predecessor, they will use law-and-order rhetoric , but will create a criminal empire for themselves.
Did you know that the fed govt. has bought the rights to produce& market certain cannabinoids? odd don’t you think seeing as the DEA claims there is NO medicinal value to it. Patent number 6,630,507 states unequivocally that cannabinoids are useful in the prevention and treatment of a wide variety of diseases including auto-immune disorders, stroke, trauma, Parkinson’s, Alzeheimer’s and HIV dementia. The patent, awarded in 2003, is based on research done by the National Institute of Health, and is assigned to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services.
“Fuck the prohibs that think they will win this WAR on the American people. WHO is voting for these assholes? Whoever is needs to be tried for TREASON!” – Umm well…there are other much bigger problems in the world than cannabis reform. When I vote for someone I look at their platform in whole rather than their stand on 1 thing. Suppose Idi Amin was running for pres but supported legal pot…would you really vote for him? Short version : no candidtae is perfect…unless I run.
Jury Nullification! protect our own, as they protect themselves!
I can’t believe people can be that stupid. This cooley guy sucks.
BTW I’m listening to ASOT 427 on di.fm if you wanna hear some good choons!
Jury Nullification! your ‘Not Guilty” verdit would equal = no convictions, which would then equal = no more prosecutions.
what is really funny is that if these dispensaries were charging what it marijuana really costs to produce and distribute(which is a hell of a lot less than street prices), there would be people buying it and selling it on the streets then the cops would be saying they would be bad because of that….. whats the common problem here? PROHIBITION
save your selfs a lot of trouble start donating to the person that is running for the same office as COOLY with 800 collectives if each gave say $2500.oo that’s 2 million$ I guess that we are going to have to do things the old way pay for it this is the only thing that the powers that be understand what we want
when you have polls that show what the people want and our elected officals don’t adhear to it replace them
rember our power is in the ballot box and the jury box power can be given and it can be taken away it is realy that simple
Find someone that works in the public defenders office and have him run
We can no longer afford this persons idea of justis
Well that would just be assinine. Close the dispenseries and go back to busting street corner dealers. Oh thats right , I forgot. THIS LEGALNESS THING HAS MADE IT REALLLY HARD TO BUST PEOPLE THESE DAYS! Well boo hoo . What ya gonna do when its legal for all?
They may be trying to get this to go through, but I don’t think it will. The people of L.A. are just going to vote them out next time they get a chance at this rate. Even if it does go through, I’m sure it will be repealed or replaced soon anyway, with something more liberal & regulated. In the end, cannabis prohibition will fall, and fall hard.
[...] to recent calls to shutter Los Angeles county’s medical marijuana collectives, MPP commissioned a poll that [...]
Hey JJ, you make $32,000.00 a year. I live next door in Kentucky. My wife makes $20,000.00 a year. I’m disabled with no income. You make $12,000.00 more a year then we do. Thats $230.00 a week we don’t have extra to spend on pot. We just get by on what we have, thanks to Wal-Mart’s $4.00 drug prices on some of my medications. Others I skip doses on because we can’t buy them every month. I put off going to the doctor as often as I should because we can’t pay for the visit. My wife’s $20,000.00 a year income makes us earn too much to get help. Her insurance will not cover me because of pre-conditions. We understand what your saying about not earning that much. I will not break the law, because the state would love to give me a home where the free never roam, and they can take everything from us. If I did choose to self medicate, I couldn’t get the right grade of medical marijuana on the streets without paying $300.00 an ounce. The “non-profit dispensaries” that call themselves “medical marijuana collectives” charge $300.00 an ounce and more for the same pot. That’s a lot of “non-profit bullshit” when they have 800 or more patients a month when the dosage is one ounce a week per patient. They make $12,480,000.00 a year. It’s no wonder there are more “non-profit medical marijuana collectives” than “Starbucks” in Los Angeles County. If I could legally grow my own medical marijuana I would be fine because I could stop taking all these pharmaceutical drugs that are destroying my system, and start healing my body, I could afford to eat a little better quality of food and pay some of our bills. If I could grow for one other patient, and charge half as much as they charge, I could buy a new car for my wife to drive to work and we wouldn’t have to worry about breaking down. Hell we couldn’t even afford to take advantage of the cash for clunkers program.
I certainly agree with individuals having a few personal plants of which are FREE (smile…).
Honestly, if I could find a hemp seed, I would allow its chance to live. I demand my own FREEDOM in the matter.
I have about two dozen plants of lemons and avocados indoors at the moment. I plant those seeds and THEY grow….u.m.m.m…must be magically delicious, huh.
They are about three-feet high and GORGEOUS in my sun-room. Very cheerful plants indeed but in this climate cannot survive a NORMAL winter.
I live for the day when every American has the right to grow their own cannabis. If we have to start with medical marijuana first, we will. There should be no non profit anybody to charge more than 50-100 dollers an ounce. Any more than that and the proffits start to multiply. If we can grow our own it even takes away what little money is being made by anyone.
Haveing your mmj card or license in any state is one of the most expesive ventures you will ever take. My bones are only going to grace this planet for a couple more years and I’ll be goddamned if I use what little money we have to further support compassion centers. When the prices drop only then would I say that those places are compassionate . Who’s fuckin insurance pays for there( weed) huh? aflac?presbetarian? legalize the hell out of it ,but until those who so call “grow and donate” drop there unreasnable “donation ” prices, I will never support that end of the legals. It cost just as much almost more to ubtain mmj than just paying the pharmacys god awfule prices. The compasion centers are doing exatly what the pharmacys do SOOOOOO were the fuck is the change other than not going to jail now. maybe. Yea I’ll grow my own until im dead thanks. Collective is a tax term commpassion is a humanitarian term .LA learn the fuckin differenece. All who run the collectives and all who operate compassion centers need to rethink there aprroach. Maybe the first step would be to get a dictonary and read the def for compassion. Fuck LA
I BELIVE IN . MMP. BUT the pricing of the product by the collectives and compassion centers is bullshit. They now it we know it
just for the record I am not hateful. I am someone who is crummbling away. I am wathing the very thing that was suppose to be the future for mmj become a profit thing! Not what it was meant to be. Still we who were looking for help now can not afford it ,so fuck it, the mexicans get my money so I don’t spend the rest of my few years throwing up every 5 min and waiting for bullshit centers to drop the prices.
Homegrown IS THE ANSWER…..what the heck…..
do people think…….that homegrown is going to
instill additional corruption to our cause or help end
the WAR!
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