For those of you who don’t regularly see our video features, I present to you the MPP Insider #009.  You can access the HD version by right-clicking and viewing on YouTube, or by viewing the video in fullscreen mode.

Today, the City of Los Angeles will begin enforcing its ordinance regulating storefront medical marijuana dispensing collectives.  The ordinance will force most of the city’s collectives to shut down (over 400 establishments), while the remaining 138 or so (those who registered with the city prior to Nov. 13, 2007) will have to comply with new zoning laws that are stricter than those for adult entertainment businesses, retail alcohol vendors, and pharmacies.

I will be the first to acknowledge that thoughtful planning and zoning are important for any community. But the way that Los Angeles has chosen to regulate medical marijuana treats marijuana as if it were far more dangerous than the products sold by pharmacies and liquor stores and willfully thrusts the city into an even worse economic position than it’s already in.

Once their neighborhood dispensaries have been shut down, forced to move, or so overloaded with business that long lines render the experience too inconvenient, I predict that many Angelenos will turn to the traditional unregulated street dealer for marijuana.  That means sales taxes won’t be paid on those transactions, it will be impossible to monitor the quality or origin of that marijuana, and the typical turf wars and crime associated with black markets will become more prevalent in our communities.

From an economic standpoint, the ordinance will shut down over 400 businesses, putting at least 1,000 people out of work and vacating all of those retail spaces – a sizeable impact on the city’s already shabby economy.

As with many other aspects of our nation’s drug control policies, you really have to abandon common sense to see how this will be better for Los Angeles.  And frankly, I’m tired of doing that.

After more than two years of deliberation — and just plain foot-dragging — on the issue, the Los Angeles City Council voted 9-3 today to enact an ordinance regulating the operation of medical marijuana facilities in the city. It’s certainly a significant milestone that the second largest city in the nation (eighth in the world) has a law on the books allowing marijuana to be sold through locally regulated storefronts. However, upon digging into the details of the ordinance, it doesn’t seem to be a great boon for the seriously ill and injured Angelenos who rely on medical marijuana.

The ordinance will restrict the number of medical marijuana facilities in the city to 70, but it does grandfather in about 150 collectives which were registered with the city prior to a moratorium which went into effect in 2007. The law will also require all marijuana products to be tested for contaminants and pesticides by an “independent and certified laboratory.” Testing of this nature is a great idea and indeed some in California’s medical marijuana community are working on developing such practices and standards, but finding a lab equipped for this type of testing overnight will be no small chore.

What’s probably the most troublesome detail is that the new ordinance institutes 1,000-foot zones around “sensitive uses” where medical marijuana collectives cannot operate legally. These include schools, public parks, libraries, and even churches. This huge 1,000-foot radius and another requirement that facilities may not be located adjacent to residential zones — which is not required of alcohol vendors — will force nearly all to move.

Meanwhile, patients looking for a safe and open place to acquire their medicine in Los Angeles may just be finding life that much more difficult.

Customs officials seize $2.6 million in bongs and pipes at Los Angeles Harbor. Yes, this is really how they’re spending our tax dollars.

The battle in L.A. is not over yet, but two City Council committees have rejected draconian and bad advice from City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, the Los Angeles Times reports.