City Attorney Elect Trutanich with GLACA members

The Greater Los Angeles Caregivers Alliance (GLACA), which is working to develop and implement sensible regulations for medical cannabis collectives and cooperatives, helped call voters, walk precincts, and turn out hundreds of members to elect the two candidates. GLACA members joined City Councilmembers Zine and Hahn in Universal City on Tuesday night to celebrate Trutanich’s victory, while a delegation of medical cannabis advocates gathered in central Los Angeles to watch the neck-and-neck race with Koretz.

The election of Trutanich – and possibly Koretz – is good news for medical cannabis supporters. Paul Koretz is the former Mayor of West Hollywood and California Assemblymember who has been a long-time champion of medical cannabis rights. He is likely to replace medical cannabis opponent Jack Weiss as the representative for District 5 – which will mean one more vote for safe access on the City Council.

Carmen Trutanich defeated outgoing Los Angeles City Councilmember Jack Weiss in the race for City Attorney following a surprisingly negative campaign. Patients and advocates feared Weiss would carry on outgoing City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo’s policy of obstructing progress on implementing sensible medical cannabis policy in the city. Trutanich told GLACA members he would uphold the state’s laws at a neighborhood meeting before the election.

Neighborhood groups and media have been critical of the City Council and City Attorney’s office for not moving quickly enough to regulate the exploding number of patients’ associations in Los Angeles. Having another medical cannabis supporter on the City Council and a more reasonable City Attorney could be important as the city begins the work of adopting a permanent ordinance in earnest this summer.

Congratulations to GLACA, the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients, and dozens of patients’ associations who helped make a difference!

The medical cannabis community in Los Angeles would do well to take notice of this growing backlash, and vocally support implementation and enforcement of local ordinances. Community complaints may undermine the goodwill that led Coucilmembers to opt for regulations, instead of a ban on facilities; and to endorse the Hinchey- Rohrabacher amendment in the US House of Representatives and support a California Senate Joint Resolution calling for an end to federal interference in state medical cannabis programs.

The moratorium adopted in 2007 contains a boiler late hardship exemption, which allows collectives and cooperatives to ask the City Council for an exemption from the terms of the ordinance. The City Council intended that this provision be used by those facilities that registered by the original deadline of November 12, 2007, but subsequently relocated for reasons beyond their control. Some of the original collectives made legitimate use of this provision, after their landlords were intimidated into evicting the collectives by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Other collectives are using the hardship application as a free pass to open new collectives in defiance of the moratorium. Inconsistent information from city staff and opportunistic legal advice fuel this trend. Over 200 collectives have filed hardship applications since the effective date ordinance. This unchecked proliferation of new storefronts leads to ambivalence towards medical cannabis  in Los Angeles. If left unchecked, the growing neighborhood opposition could reverse our progress and result in onerous regulations for every collective in Los Angeles – or renewed calls for an outright ban. At the City Council meeting in Van Nuys on March 6, 2009, Councilmember Dennis Zine, a champion of regulations for collectives, promised the city would start reviewing hardship applications and closing illegitimate collectives.

Medical cannabis patients and providers should stand in solidarity calling for enforcement of the existing moratorium, and ask the City Council to move quickly in processing the hardship applications. We must also keep pressure on Councilmembers and city staff to craft sensible permanent regulations for storefronts in Los Angeles. Research and experience shows this reduces crime and neighborhood complaints, making patients and collectives safer in the long run.

Get more information about the Los Angeles moratorium from Americans For Safe Access (ASA).