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For a long time it has been clear that the Los Angeles city council opposed medical marijuana dispensaries, and yesterday it escalated its fight against them to a new level. In a unanimous 14-0 vote the council decided to ban all dispensaries within the city. From the LA Times:
Under the ban, each of the 762 dispensaries that have registered with the city will be sent a letter ordering them to shut down immediately. Those that don’t comply may face legal action from the city.
Medical marijuana activists who had packed the council chambers jeered when the vote came down. More than a dozen Los Angeles Police Department officers were called in to quell them.
Under the ban, medical patients and their caregivers will be able to grow and share the drug in small groups of three people or less.
In a separate move the Council also voted to have city officials draft a separate proposal that could potentially grandfather dispensaries opened before 2007, leaving open the small possibility that the city could later amend the outright ban. If the full ban is implemented, Los Angeles with nearly four million people would be the largest municipality in the state to ban retail medical marijuana stores.
Before the ban is fully implemented, though, it will most likely be subject to numerous lawsuits. It is still an open legal question in California if the state’s medical marijuana laws allow local jurisdictions to completely ban or impose strict controls on medical marijuana dispensaries. As a result of numerous conflicting decisions on the matter in lower courts, earlier this year the California Supreme Court decided to review the issue. It could be a year before the state Supreme Court makes a final ruling on the matter.
8 Comments
Gotta love the Los Angeles City Council. With unemployment hovering around 12.2% currently in Los Angeles, they unanimously pass a measure that would likely put over 1,000 people out of work.
What does LACC have against mj dispensaries.
There seem to be two general reasons from what I read and heard: (1) that the dispensaries can be hot spots for crime; and (2) that most dispensaries are engaged in the sale of recreational marijuana to healthy young adults.
Not sure whether reason (2) is that dispensaries are acting outside the law and selling to people without a prescription, or whether it is really just a criticism of the medical marijuana program generally (i.e., these people aren’t really sick), or some degree of both.
Also, from I understand, reason (1) here is similar to the lament of the ubiquity of liquor stores in low income neighborhoods. The argument is that dispensaries attract and breed unsavory behavior.
Thanks.
As for #1, they could inspect the records.
As for #2, they could get rid of all stores in poor neighborhoods and then there’d be nothing to rob, so crime goes down.
(I’m particularly fond of the reductio ad absurdum method of argument.)
As an LA resident, I can tell you that the LA City Council votes unanimously on just about everything. Not sure why, but there was more independent thinking in the Soviet Politburo.
Well, remember this when these fools come up for re-election and make them pay.
The same LA City Council that voted to require condoms in all porn? Looks like LA is actually pretty prudish.
They probably received bribes from Big Pharma for their votes. The crime story is just a cover. The illegal sale and purchase of drugs is always more responsible for crime than whatever could be attributed to legal dispensaries.