BREAKING: Los Angeles sued over new medical marijuana law
A lawsuit filed Tuesday challenges Los Angeles' crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries, claiming it would force nearly all of them to close.
The suit by the nation's largest medical marijuana advocacy group accuses the city of violating the state constitutional rights of pot clinic operators and claims the city ordinance "deprives the seriously ill of the medicine promised them by the electorate and the Legislature of California."
It wants a judge to permanently prevent the new law from being enforced and to award damages.
City attorney's spokesman Frank Mateljan had no immediate comment.
California voters passed a law in 1996 that legalized marijuana use for medical reasons, but it didn't say anything about distribution. So some cities have permitted dispensaries to flourish while others, such as Costa Mesa and Fresno, have effectively banned them and arrested owners.
Los Angeles has been struggling for years with the issue of controlling dispensaries. The ordinance that the mayor signed last month caps the number of dispensaries in the city at 70.
City officials have estimated there could be as many as 1,000 outlets in the city and that some sell pot as a business. Last month, the city filed lawsuits and eviction notices against 21 dispensaries and arrested one owner.
AUDIO: Will Legalizing Pot Solve California’s Budget Woes?
By at least one estimate, California's largest cash crop is not milk, cheese, or oranges, it's marijuana. Some advocates say legalizing pot — and taxing it — could be a way out of the state's financial woes, and they recently secured enough signatures for a ballot initiative to do just that. But how much revenue a legal pot industry generates would depend on how prices are set.
And it isnt just Los Angeles having budget trouble, the whole state is in the throes of a full-blown fiscal crisis. But it looks like Californians may get the chance to vote on a novel way to help balance the books. The proposal? Legalized pot, then tax it. So, how much money would that raise? Well, that depends on complicated economic questions like what would a joint sell for on the open market?
Heres NPRs David Kestenbaum with our Planet Money team.
DAVID KESTENBAUM: Right now, the price of marijuana varies a lot. The government actually studies these things. Researchers go into holding cells or if people have been arrested and asked questions like what do you pay for marijuana?
Los Angeles City Council Votes to Close 800 Marijuana Dispensaries
The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to close roughly 800 medical marijuana dispensaries in the city by passing the first reading of an ordinance which would also require 75% of remaining dispensaries to relocate. The vote, to be confirmed in a second reading of the ordinance next Tuesday, will radically change the landscape of medical marijuana distribution in Los Angeles, which has been largely unregulated since dispensaries were first authorized by state law in 1996.
If the ordinance takes effect later this spring, medical marijuana dispensaries will have to find locations more than 1000 feet from various 'sensitive uses' -- including churches, public parks, schools, rehab centers, and other dispensaries. They will also be required to grow all their cannabis on-site, test it for pesticides, provide written notice of their existence to all neighbors within 1000 feet, maintain 24-hour complaint hotlines, hire unarmed security guards to patrol a two-block radius, keep 90 days of security footage and fulfill a number of other registration requirements with the city.
Los Angeles City Council Delays Medical Marijuana Vote Until January 19
The Los Angeles City Council delayed final approval of regulations for medical cannabis collectives until Tuesday. Councilmembers want more time to study a report by the Planning Department and new ordinance language provided by the City Attorney less than one hour before this morning’s meeting. The debate about the regulations seems to be winding up, with only a few contentious issues left to resolve – including where collectives can locate and how many will be allowed.
More than one hundred Angelinos showed up for today’s Special Meeting, more than half of whom spoke in segments strictly limited to one minute each by acting President Dennis Zine. The crowd was stunned to hear the Executive Director of Beverly Hills NORML, Cheryl Shuman, tell the Council that she was denied a liver transplant because of her medical cannabis use. “I am going to die because of this,” she told the Council.
The 51-page report from the Planning Department showed the acreage available for collectives under differing regulatory schemes. In most cases, requiring buffer zones between a laundry list of sensitive uses and residential uses would eliminate most opportunities. For example, the report shows that requiring collectives to more than 500 feet from sensitive uses and any property used as a residence would mean that only four of the 137 collectives registered before the city’s moratorium could remain open.
Confusion about marijuana sales traced to California law
Yamileth Bolanos helps a customer pick out a strain of medical cannabis at the PureLife Alternative Wellness Center in Los Angeles. Bolanos and other collective operators argue state law allows sales. But, she admits, "It's like the Bible, everybody reads it the way they want to." Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times / December 24, 2009
Prosecutors in Los Angeles insist that collectives cannot sell medical marijuana at their stores and can provide it only to members who actively cultivate it together. Dispensary operators, on the other hand, argue that it is absurd to expect them to run Soviet-style collective farms and to rule out cash payments for pot.
When the Los Angeles City Council finishes its marijuana ordinance, which may finally happen this month, it is likely to inflame this increasingly contentious debate over how the drug can be distributed.
The conflict hinges on the state's 2003 medical marijuana law and almost entirely on a single sentence.
"The law's screwed up in a lot of ways. There's big gaping holes," said Yamileth Bolanos, who runs PureLife Alternative Wellness Center and is one of the city's most politically involved operators. "It's very confusing for everyone, even the prosecution and law enforcement. It's like the Bible, everybody reads it the way they want to."
Initiative to Legalize Marijuana Headed for the Ballot in 2010
According to a recent article in the L.A. Times, a ballot initiative that, if passed, would legalize marijuana state wide is slated to be put on the 2010 general election ballot.
It would be a substantial breakthrough for California, which was the country's leader in decriminalizing marijuana for individual use and in developing medicinal marijuana.
Thankfully, it would also eliminate the contradictions that currently exist in the law that lead to absurd and incredibly unjust outcomes. I am specifically referring to the drastic difference in penalties for posessing less than an ounce of marijuana and selling less than an ounce of marijuana.
Oaksterdam University: One Small Soldier in a Big War
Credit: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t
Richard Lee rolls down the street in his wheelchair, popping in on any number of his businesses located in the "Oaksterdam district" of downtown Oakland, California. Once known for the wild finishes of its roughhouse Raiders, the city has quietly evolved into the Amsterdam of America. And Mr. Lee is spearheading the charge.
Lee is president of Oaksterdam University, the country's first "cannabis college," and a leading voice behind the statewide ballot measure The Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. If his hunch is correct (and polling data bears him out), California may become the first state to legalize marijuana.
2010 Will Be Even Better Than 2009 For Marijuana Advocates
Already Four States Have Marijuana Legalization Bills In Play; Californians To Vote On Legalization in 2010
It can readily be said that 2009 was one of the busiest and most productive years in cannabis law reform since NORML’s founding in 1970. However, it appears as if 2010 is going to be an even busier year–notably marked by the increasing number of actual state legalization bills and a voter initiative in America’s most important state.
Currently, there is legalization legislation pending in California, Massachusetts, Vermont, and a legalization bill was just introduced this week in Washington. Frankly, most of these bills do not have a strong prospect in passing this time out, however the immense public discussion that is generated is crucial for overall reform efforts.
The formula is simple: No public discussion or debate about legalization, obviously equates to no substantive law reforms. This is what regrettably happened in the United States, Canada and Europe from 1980-2000, buttressed by extreme federal anti-marijuanism in the form of the DARE program in the public school, the blitzkrieg of Partnership for a Drug-Free America ads polluting media airwaves and omnibus federal crime bills overloaded with severe and costly penalties (i.e., mandatory minimum sentencing, civil forfeiture, mass drug testing, etc…). However, since the turn of the century, there have been ever-increasing public discussions and debates about marijuana prohibition–principally driven by the creation and implementation of medical cannabis laws in thirteen states–which is leading to greater public support for reform.
Continue reading this article by Allen St. Pierre who is the Executive Director at NORML
Trouble Ahead for Medical Marijuana in California
A display case at Belmont Shore Natural Care showcases a large variety of marijuana types at the dispensary in Long Beach, California. Credit: Corbis
California and Los Angeles have been pioneer sites for the expansion of the legal right to use marijuana. But local officials may now be at the forefront of curtailing some of that exuberance. If the Los Angeles city council has its way, the plethora of largely unregulated medical-marijuana facilities that have become a neighborhood blight in parts of the city may finally be brought under control. L.A. officials and medical-marijuana advocates estimate there may be as many as 1,000 such dispensaries. But in a preliminary vote on Tuesday, Dec. 8, the council indicated its intention to cap the number at just 70.
At the same time, the language of the medical-marijuana ordinance being debated is putting dispensaries under increased scrutiny. At the moment, the proposed ordinance would allow the facilities to accept monetary contributions for their services, a way of finessing the stipulation under state law that dispensaries remain essentially nonprofits. Currently all dispensaries stay in business by selling marijuana, a status that city attorney Carmen Trutanich and Los Angeles County district attorney Steve Cooley believe already violates the nonprofit requirement. According to their interpretation, recent court decisions have shown that marijuana collectives cannot sell the drug over the counter for a profit, although members can be reimbursed for the cost of growing it. "Whatever [the city council does] come up with, we will study very carefully, and if they're proposing anything that is inconsistent with California state law, we will ignore their act and enforce the law as we're sworn to do," Cooley tells TIME.
Pasadena Weekly: How does your pot grow? An inside look
“Nobody produces any better weed than we do here,” says Raul G. Raul, a pot grower whose farm is somewhere between Santa Paula and Ojai. Raul likes to think of himself as a benevolent outlaw, supplying “medical” marijuana to clinics and “slanging [dealing] a little on the side to make people happy.”
His plants are gorgeous, even (or maybe even more so) to a man in recovery who hasn’t touched bud in 11 years. Some are easily 15 feet tall, with the sexiest flowers this side of Holland.
“Weed is as natural and wholesome as spinach,” says Raul, adding, “and a lot more profitable.”
Medical pot’s reputation has been tarnished lately — LA County’s DA is shutting down dispensaries, and investigators with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s narcotics unit have blamed at least one of the recent wildfires on a marijuana farm. But neither the negative publicity, nor, in fact, anything short of a bust, is going to put Raul out of business. Just one of his plants, he says, yields about two pounds of herb, which would be worth about $5,000; Raul boasts that his plants are worth “a cool green million.”
The economics of weed are simple and seductive. It costs about $1,000 to grow a kilo (2.2 pounds) of pot, which sells for up to $7,500 to a wholesaler. At a conservative $15 a gram, the $1,000 investment can ultimately be worth $15,000. If “medical marijuana” clinics are getting any part of the deal, you can imagine how sweet that is.
California Officials Target Big Marijuana Growers
These days, medical marijuana clinics are popping up like weeds in California. Los Angeles alone has nearly 1,000 places where, with a doctor's note, you can legally buy pot.
But the illegal side of marijuana is also thriving. Authorities say it's partly because all those pot clinics have boosted the demand. That means the state spends millions of dollars trying to wipe out a plant that's already sanctioned.
For decades, a task force of lawmen has been parachuting into some of the most rugged sections of California. For a week at a time, they search for and destroy as much pot as they can find. They call it the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP.
On a recent day, NPR joined CAMP in a helicopter to hunt for cannabis in Humboldt County in Northern California.
