About Medical Marijuana

Delay in LA

City Attorney Carmen Trutanich

Los Angeles City Councilmember Dennis Zine told a standing room only crowd at Tuesday’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee hearing that an ordinance that does not recognize sales of medical cannabis would not work for Los Angeles, but he is worried about creating a policy that violates state law. The Councilmember’s ambivalence is part of the confusion that dominated yesterday’s marathon committee meeting. The PLUM committee voted to continue the debate on the regulations, Zine’s motion for more study into relevant case law, and a progress report from the planning department for another week to allow committee members more time to review the material.

Part of what the committee is reviewing is a new draft ordinance from City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, which his office provided to the PLUM committee and the public less than one hour before the meeting was scheduled to begin. Like two previous versions prepared by his predecessor, Rocky Delgadillo, the new version does not recognize legitimate sales of cannabis within the membership of a legally organized and operated medical cannabis collective. Instead, the ordinance seeks to regulate collective patient gardens – a regulatory strategy  rejected by the committee earlier this year.

The City Attorney arranged for a parade of officials to reinforce his position that sales of cannabis are illegal in all circumstances. Representatives from the Long Beach District Attorney and City Attorney’s offices inexplicably joined the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and Los Angeles Police Department to reinforce Trutanich’s message. Medical cannabis advocates can take a lesson from the discipline with which the City Attorney’s team kept to his talking points. In comments without time limits, every official speaker insisted that “over the counter sales” are illegal.

Dozens of advocates responded to a call by Americans for Safe Access (ASA) to speak to the committee about the new regulations. Strictly limited to one minute each, patients and advocates asked the PLUM Committee to protect the privacy of patient cultivators and make a myriad of other improvements to what advocates call “the Reyes version,” an alternative ordinance prepared by city staff in advance of today’s meeting at the request of PLUM Committee Chairman Ed Reyes. Speakers also took issue with the City Attorney’s intransigence on sales of medicine and timing in releasing his version of the ordinance.

In written comments to PLUM Committee members in advance of the meeting, I explained that state law allows for sales of cannabis inside a member-supplied collective association, and that state courts have consistently upheld these associations and transactions as legal.  This is a message ASA and allies have repeated in a private meeting with senior staff at Trutanich’s office and in a White Paper published last month.

Delay at the PLUM Committee is another impediment progress on permanent regulations for the city. That is unfortunate, because sensible regulations are exactly what the city needs to quell community concern over the unchecked proliferation of storefront collectives and recent violence associated with medical cannabis. It’s also too bad for patients. The longer these issues go unresolved, the more likely the City Council is to react to public pressure with onerous regulations.

Tags: carmen trutanich, dennis zine, draft ordinance, Los Angeles, PLUM committee, regulations