Saturday, May 9th, 2009
City Councils all over the state are grappling with how best to regulate safe access to medical cannabis. The Oakland City Council will ask voters there to approve a measure in July that will increase the business license tax for medical cannabis dispensing collectives in that city from $1.20 to $18 per $1,000 in gross sales. The city hopes to raise badly needed revenue, and some advocates hope the increased revenue will provide an incentive for jurisdictions to regulate collectives instead of ban them. The City Council’s measure comes as the financial upside of cannabis and medical cannabis reform is making news nationwide.
The City of San Mateo, located on the San Francisco peninsula, recently adopted an ordinance regulating medical cannabis collectives. Unfortunately, that regulatory effort ran amok when Council Members responded to law enforcement pressure by banning edible preparations and the actual sale of cannabis. Both provisions are deal breakers for local advocates, who are asking the Council for amendments. Some patients can only use edibles, and state law specifically allows for sales of cannabis within a legal patients’ association.
Both Temple City (near Pasadena) and Galt (between Stockton and Sacramento) recently adopted moratoria in response to requests for permits to open new collectives. These moratoria can be an opportunity to write sensible regulations – but only if local patients and advocates let their elected representatives know that is what they want. Otherwise, lawmakers may bow to law enforcement pressure and ban collectives outright.
Patients and advocates must be active in the local debate about medical cannabis regulation. Unless there is an organized grassroots constituency, no one will be able to respond to bad provisions like those in San Mateo, or to steer temporary moratoria away from bans and towards sensible guidelines. Americans for Safe Access (ASA) has tools and support for local advocates – but needs people on the ground doing the work in cities and counties all over California. Join your local ASA chapter or start one of your own to help make a difference where you live.
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Friday, May 1st, 2009
The City of Sacramento is the latest in California to see a proliferation of new storefronts maintained by legal medical cannabis collectives and cooperatives. More than twenty are reportedly operating there now – most of which opened within the last six months. The expansion of safe access is good news for patients suffering from HIV/AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, and other serious conditions. But advocates and elected officials there worry that the rapid expansion in safe access may lead to public ambivalence, possibly even a backlash, in a city where medical cannabis collectives have thus far operated without much controversy.
I sent an email to the Sacramento Mayor and City Council Members in April urging them to move quickly in adopting sensible regulations for collectives and cooperatives. Americans for Safe Access (ASA) Sacramento Coordinator Lanette Davies and other advocates have been talking with their representatives about sensible regulations, and the city’s Law and Legislation Commission is now considering language for an ordinance that will enact a temporary moratorium on new medical cannabis storefronts. Adoption of this ordinance is likely immanent. This will give the city an opportunity to write permanent regulations to regulate storefront collectives and cooperatives.
In my email, I explain that ASA research shows the benefits of local regulation:
“Some reports have suggested that storefront patients’ associations are magnets for criminal activity or other behavior that is a problem for the community, but the experience of those cities with regulations says otherwise. Crime statistics and the accounts of local officials surveyed by Americans for Safe Access indicate that crime is actually reduced by the presence of a collective; and complaints from citizens and surrounding businesses are either negligible or are significantly reduced with the implementation of local regulations. In Oakland, where collectives have been licensed since 2004, City Administrator Barbara Killey, notes that ‘The areas around the dispensaries may be some of the safest areas of Oakland now because of the level of security, surveillance, etc…since the ordinance passed.’”
The City of Sacramento is wise to pursue regulation, and local advocates will keep working with their elected officials to be sure the city’s final ordinance is one that facilitates safe access while protecting patients and the community at large. Advocates, including the city’s new collective operators, who wish to participate in this process can attend monthly ASA meetings on the first and third Tuesday of every month at 7:00 p.m. at Crusaders Hall located at 320 Harris Avenue, Suite H, in Sacramento. Email cannacare@earthlink.net for more information.
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Wednesday, April 29th, 2009
Los Angeles City Council Member Jose Huizar made a motion yesterday to remove the hardship provision from the Interim Control Ordinance (ICO), which established a moratorium on new medical cannabis collectives in Los Angeles in 2007. The hardship provision allowed collectives that did not register with the City Clerk’s office before November 13, 2007, to ask the City Council for a special exemption from the moratorium. If adopted as drafted, Councilmember Huizar’s motion will prevent any new hardship applications, but have no effect on the previously registered collectives – including 287 collectives with pending hardship applications.
The City Council anticipated that hardship applicants would not operate their facilities until their applications were approved. However, virtually all of the applicants are currently operating in alleged violation of the ICO. It remains to be seen what action the city will take in response to the applications, but Councilmembers and staff are concerned about neighborhoods where collectives are clustering and those locations that generate complaints from neighbors.
There is likely to be a lot of uncertainty surrounding Councilmember Huizar’s new motion, the city’s movement to enforce the ICO, and the final approval of a permanent ordinance regulating collectives and cooperatives in Los Angeles. Hardship operators would do well to address any neighborhood concerns right away, and prepare to make their case when and if the City Council considers their applications. I suspect many collectives are poorly prepared for this scrutiny.
Los Angeles collectives should join the Greater Los Angeles Caregivers Alliance (GLACA), a voluntary association of collectives and cooperatives organized to promote safety and operational protocols. GLACA and Americans for Safe Access (ASA) have been working closely with city officials for over four years to protect safe access in the city. GLACA membership means having real-time access to accurate information, and the opportunity to influence the outcome of the regulatory process.
GLACA holds monthly meetings for collective operators on the third Wednesday night of every month at 9:00 PM. Email info@caregiversalliance.org for more information.
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Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
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).
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