Protecting patient-cultivators
September 18th, 2009 | by Don Duncan |Medical cannabis collectives in Los Angeles may have to tell the police department who grows their medicine if the City Council adopts a draft ordinance that will be heard before the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee on Tuesday. The city’s Chief Legislative Analyst and city staff prepared the latest draft of the ordinance after the PLUM Committee rejected a version prepared by former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo that would have banned storefront collectives earlier this year.
The ordinance requires that “The names of all registered members of the Cooperative/Collective who will be contributing Medical Marijuana to the Cooperative/Collective must be disclosed in writing and in advance to the Los Angeles Police Department.” That provision would give patient-cultivators pause in the most tolerant jurisdictions, but it is a poison pill in a city where local law enforcement considers all medical cannabis activity suspect and routinely cooperates with the Drug Enforcement Administration to close collectives under federal law.
In three pages (updated 9/18/09) of suggested improvements to be delivered tomorrow, I caution PLUM Committee members that, “Requiring the patients’ association to disclose the names and addresses of members who supply medicine is unnecessary and places the patient-cultivator at undue legal risk from inappropriate law enforcement activity, rogue police officers, and federal interference. This provision is unacceptable and should be deleted in its entirety.”
Tuesday’s committee meeting will also be the first chance for Angelenos to hear what newly-elected City Attorney Carmen Trutanich has to say about the propose regulations. I was discouraged to hear his Senior Adviser, Jane Usher, tell a neighborhood group in August that her boss could not find any rationale for sales of cannabis under state law – even within the membership a legally organized and operated patients’ association. That may be a bad sign that Trutanich intends to follow in his predecessor’s anti-collective footsteps. That would make it harder to persuade the PLUM Committee and full City Council to adopt regulations that respect the legal status of patients’ associations that maintain storefronts and provide medicine in exchange for financial remuneration in accordance with state law.
The PLUM Committee meets at 2:00 PM on Tuesday, September 22, in Room 350 at City Hall. Come early to complete a speaker’s card if you want to talk to committee members about the draft ordinance.
Tags: carmen trutanich, draft ordinance, jane usher, Los Angeles, PLUM committee
By sandy on Sep 19, 2009
As has been said, everyone’s been had, lied to, “Laura Chick’ed,” to get to this endorsement and help in voting against his opponent Jack Weiss.
By Trutanich and his friend Zine who now wants to make himself point man on the issue, and is playing up the excuse of robberies at medical marijuana shops to say he and Trutanich “changed their minds.” Pure demagoguery: tell someone what they want to hear to get their vote, then “realize” the full situation, any excuse to dump them.
At least with Weiss, you knew where he stood and now that the Obama Administration reversed its policy of insisting that fed law trumps state, and with Weiss having close ties to Obama, you’d have had a fair chance with someone who knows his way around municipal law and the city. It’s likely he’d have changed his views to balance the changed legal situation with the public safety advice of LAPD.
Did you REALLY think that a Republican whose core base is the most rightwing of talkshow hosts (listen to podcasts of Kevin James’ show on KRLA sometime), and the Walter Moore crowd, would be “more progressive” on this or any issue? Your best bet after Tuesday is to call him out publicly on this about-face, remind him point-blank of his promises, at least make them go on record.
By Don Duncan on Sep 20, 2009
Thanks for your comments. Politics can be frustrating this way. Jack Weiss was clear that he agreed with former City Attorney Delgadillo and the LAPD that all storefront MCDC and any sales of cannabis were illegal. We rolled the dice on Trutanich, who never made a commitment to support us despite our vocal support for him. In the big picture, the city is much better off with Trutanich in that powerful office – even if he disappoints us on this issue. We must also acknowledge that Zine position is consistent throughout this long process. He is pro-regulation, not pro-cannabis. Our work would be much harder if he took the obstructionist position of his ideological counterparts.
By sandy on Sep 21, 2009
Thanks for the reply, Don, though I couldn’t disagree more about your comment on the city being better off with in “the big picture,” many of us who supported him or were undecided think his extreme take on everything from the graffiti “hanging as a crime” injunction, contrary to his promises to distinguish at-risk kids from real gangbangers and criminals; above all to his outright campaign lies to Chick and others on the Controller issue, and brushing off ethical issues; bizarre behavior in making unsubstantiated threats against vague people over the LAPD’s handling of the Lakers parade and Jackson events, other meddling in the procedures of LAPD which turned out to be wrong, possibly helping drive off the priceless Chief Bratton; wanting to vastly expand the City Attorney’s legal staff and create a 200-person secret police force we absolutely can’t afford, to carry out and try to find more of his vague and unsubstantiated missions; threatening to sue other officials and even volunteer Board and Commission members for disagreeing with him: maybe you haven’t been paying attention, but this isn’t the kind of “change” we needed. Good luck on Tuesday.