The City of Los Angeles has had an enormous problem with
medical marijuana dispensaries. L.A. has
been a national joke for several years now because it is said that the City has
more marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks coffee shops.
In a full council vote, to take place as soon
as next week, L.A. is hopefully going to join more than 175 cities and 13
counties with banning the unsightly and troublesome pot shops.
A look at some of the text in a proposed ordinance, approved
by the City’s Planning and Land Use Committee, shows appalling evidence that
this is a situation totally out of control and that something must be done
about it. According to Los Angeles
City Clerk’s office records and a recent report by the Los Angeles Daily News, L.A.
is also fighting 70 lawsuits brought by the marijuana drug lobby Americans For Safe Access and dispensary operators who were asked to
close because most opened without the City’s approval.
Here’s part of the Ordinance:
WHEREAS, commencing in 2007, according to local media reports and neighborhood sightings and complaints, more than 850 medical marijuana
businesses randomly opened,
closed and reopened storefront shops and commercial growing operations in the City without any land use
approval under the Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC or this Code) and, since that time, an unknown number of these businesses continue to randomly open, close,
and reopen in Los Angeles, each with no regulatory authorization from the City;
WHEREAS, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has reported that, as the number of marijuana dispensaries and commercial growing operations
continue to proliferate
without legal oversight, the City and its neighborhoods have experienced an increase in crime and the negative secondary
harms associated with unregulated
marijuana
businesses, including but not limited to, murders, robberies, the distribution
of tainted marijuana,
and the diversion of marijuana for non-medical and recreational uses;
Source Link (See
Ordinance): http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2011/11-1737-s1_rpt_cpc_5-25-12.pdf
Lastly, in this CBS news report, one Councilman says he
thinks the City’s plan for a “gentle ban” is heartless and that 100
dispensaries should remain open. The
gentle ban being that the city would allow a very limited number of legitimately
and seriously ill patients to grow marijuana at home in a group of no more than
three. In my opinion, California Proposition 215, which
was enacted by voters in 1996 is a bad law to begin with and should be taken
off the books. The L.A. gentle ban
however is in accordance with what Prop. 215 suggests.
City officials should always keep in mind, that marijuana is a federally illegal, banned substance under the
Controlled Substances Act and that even a gentle ban is illegal in the eyes of
the Federal Government.
