Rethink the regulations
February 2nd, 2010 | by Don Duncan |
Jose Huizar
In an op-ed published in the LA Times today, Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar told readers that he and his colleagues adopted an ordinance last week that “balances the needs of local communities with those of patients who truly need access to medical marijuana.” That is a rosy interpretation of an ordinance that may regulate all but a few patients’ collectives out of existence. The ordinance is designed around the faulty premise that medical cannabis collectives are bad for neighborhoods. Even LAPD Chief Charlie Beck concedes that collectives are not magnets for crime; and research by Americans for Safe Access (ASA) indicates that they can help improve a neighborhood.
“Balance” is by no means the theme of the new regulations. The ordinance has the most severe location restrictions for collectives in the state, and compliance with the Byzantine registration and relocation process is nearly impossible. The number of collectives allowed is arbitrarily low. The police department can inspect patient records, including individual transactions, without a search warrant (or even probable cause). And on and on….
Councilmembers would do well to revisit the most onerous provisions of the ordinance before enforcement results in criminal raids, lawsuits, and even more bad press. A good start would be to adopt an amendment allowing those collectives that are legally operating without complaints to stay open in their current location. This “good neighbor exception” would make sure that good collectives are not swept away by an ordinance designed in response to a tiny handful of bad apples in the city.
The regulations will be back in the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee soon enough. Councilmember Parks is trying to amend the ordinance to push collectives further back from residential uses; and Councilmember Huizar wants a report from city staff on how many pre-moratorium collectives are still open six months after the effective date of the new ordinance. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail when public and media pressure to “do something” fades.
