KCET’s SoCal Connected broadcast a story about the proliferation of medical cannabis collectives in Los Angeles tonight. The report was very critical of the City Council and City Attorney for failing to enforce the Interim Control Ordinance establishing a moratorium on new collectives in the city and for not moving fast enough to adopt a permanent ordinance.
This report is the latest evidence of growing frustration in Los Angeles neighborhoods. The Mid-Wilshire Neighborhood Council adopted a resolution this week asking the City Council to enforce the moratorium. They join the Melrose-Fairfax Neighborhood Watch, Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, and others community groups in speaking up about medical cannabis. Many of the principals in those organizations were featured in the report.
Bad media is bad news for patients and providers in Los Angeles. Councilmembers must adopt a permanent ordinance before the moratorium expires on September 14, and we do not want them having that debate in the context of a public outcry. This report spared collectives and cooperatives the harshest criticisms – making only passing reference to marketing aimed at young people and profiteering. We can expect more critical coverage if the public outcry grows.
There is a special election for the City of Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 19, and we have a chance to make a big difference for medical cannabis patients and providers that day. Because this is a run-off election it will be decided by just a few hundred votes! The medical cannabis community is supporting Paul Koretz for City Council (District 5) and Carmen Trutanich for City Attorney.
If you are a registered voter in the City of Los Angeles, please find your polling place and vote on Tuesday, May 19. You should encourage friends, loved ones, medical cannabis advocates, and members of your patients’ association to do the same!
The Greater Los Angeles Caregivers Alliance (GLACA), a voluntary association of local collectives working to promote best practices in the field of medical cannabis, is organizing volunteers to make calls and walk precincts in the final days before the election. The Union of Medical Marijuana Patients (UMPP) is also mobilizing the base by distributing thousands of post cards about the candidates all over the city and hosting a victory party. Many Los Angeles patients’ associations are offering incentives to memebrs who cast a balllot next week.
Why all the fuss over a runoff election? Because this runoff will have a big impact on the city’s medical cannabis policy. If elected, Paul Koretz, a long time champion of medical cannabis rights, will replace medical cannabis opponent Jack Weiss in District 5. That means we will replace an anti–medcial cannabis vote with a solid pro-medcial cannabis vote. Better still, we can help elect Carmen Trutanich in his close race for District Attorney with outgoing District 5 Councilmember Jack Weiss. If Trutanich wins, we can anticipate a more reasonable approach to medical cannabis and local implementation. If Weiss wins, we can expect more stalling and blocking from his office.
Imagine how much better off we will be in Los Angeles with one more vote on the City Council and a reasonable City Attorney! This is a rare chance to make a big difference with a few votes. Do your part to elect Paul Koretz to City Council (District 5) and Carmen Trutanich as City Attorney.
Council Members Zine and Reyes with ASA and GLACA representatives
City Councilmembers Dennis Zine and Ed Reyes visited Purelife Alternative, a medical cannabis dispensing collective in Los Angeles, on April 20 as part of the city’s ongoing effort to adopt an ordinance regulating facilities in that city. Medical cannabis advocates hope the visit will help the Councilmembers and city staff craft sensible regulations for collectives in the city before a moratorium on new facilities expires on September 14.
The visit is a strategic victory for medical cannabis advocates in Los Angeles. The Councilmembers’ first hand look at the operations of a legal collective served to dispel many preconceptions and clearly demonstrate how access to medicine can be safe and orderly. Representatives from Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and the Greater Los Angeles Caregivers Alliance (GLACA) talked with the Councilmembers and city staff about preventing diversion, verifying members, security, and quality control.
Councilmember Reyes is the Chairman of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee (PLUM), which heard testimony critical of a draft ordinance prepared by the City Attorney’s office in February. The City Attorney’s draft ordinance treats all sales of medical cannabis as illegal and would require storefront collectives in Los Angeles to close. Advocates have joined Councilmember Zine in rejecting the City Attorney’s ordinance and calling on the PLUM committee to request a new version incorporating input from the city’s defunct medical cannabis working group.
Progress on adopting a permanent ordinance has been slow in Los Angeles, but there is growing pressure from neighborhood groups to stop the proliferation of new facilities in the city. More than 200 new collectives have opened in Los Angeles since the city adopted an Interim Control Ordinance establishing a moratorium on new locations in 2007. Advocates hope the City Council visit will serve to expedite the permanent ordinance, because research shows that regulating collectives reduces crime and complaints in neighborhoods.
Angelinos are concerned about the growing number of medical cannabis collectives opening in the city lately, despite the eighteen-month old moratorium on new facilities. Concern is greatest in those neighborhoods where storefront collectives are clustering. In an op-ed published today, the LA Daily News says North Hollywood has “more than its fair share of dispensaries;” and neighborhood activists in the Melrose-Fairfax area are actively lobbying the City Attorney and City Council to close facilities that opened after Councilmembers adopted a moratorium on new storefronts in August 2007. The proliferation of new facilities has escalated since US Attorney General Holder made comments on February 25 and March 18 indicating federal policy opposing medical cannabis may be changing, giving many would-be collective operators what is likely a false sense of security.
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).
There is a special election for the City of Los Angeles on Tuesday, May 19, and we have a chance to make a big difference for medical cannabis patients and providers that day. Because this is a run-off election it will be decided by just a few hundred votes! The medical cannabis community is supporting 
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 